The Lay of a Broken Winged Sparrow
by Bladesworn
Summary: When my own people cast me out, it was the enemy that took me in. / Atreia through the eyes of an exiled Asmodian; graphic descriptions of all kinds.
1. Chapter 1

**Part I: Exile**

"We carry on our back the burden time always reveals  
In the lonely light of morning, in the wound that would not heal  
It's the bitter taste of losing everything that I've held so dear."

- _Sarah McLachlan, Fallen._

They brought me before them, dripping with chain, on my knees and reduced to less than nothing. My head bowed and back stiff, I prayed in a way thought unbecoming for my people, not for vengeance, but for merciful release.

There was no heart left in me to wish for revenge.

"Read the charges," said Lord Carcarron, his voice deceptively soft, timbre so like his son's that I flinched from a fresh wave of inner pain. I hoped that Aion would see fit to strike me dead upon the spot; the tattered shreds of my pride could not withstand this public tribunal, this exposure of my grief to all and sundry who cared to visit Carcarron Keep in its time of loss.

Long before this moment, I had asked the soldier stationed outside my cell door for the white band. He had refused, face stricken, both shamed and sorrowful as he turned away. There had been no other chances to end my existence honorably, and my gaolers had taken such care that I appear before the Lord in the best of health - washed and well fed, my dove-grey garments in good repair - that I could only believe that it had been on his own orders.

The days had passed as if a waking nightmare. They had not allowed me attend Raum's funeral, though I had heard the chanting of the house clerics faintly through my barred window.

The Herald cleared her throat; her angel's voice flowed across those gathered at my trial, dulcet tones giving voice to my crimes. I looked up then, and locked eyes with Avarran Carcarron, whose heir I had guarded with my life - and whom I had ultimately failed to save from his fate.

Studying Lord Carcarron's face, burning into my brain the image of what Raum would have become had he lived to see the day, I scarcely heard the Herald as she decried the litany of crimes both real and imagined. Carcarron's inhabitants, indeed all of my people, needed a reason, someone to blame for the death of one of their favored sons. At their baying, every fell action that could have even vaguely been ascribed to me had been placed into record, and I was held responsible for acts I had never committed. Yet, I would contest none of them. Raum was dead, and nothing, not even my own end, could bring him back, or lift the stain from my honor.

As the Herald finished, Lord Carcarron's face turned implacable and hard, his voice strident and furious. "How do you plead, Azhdeen?" He knew the answer, read it in my face as surely as if I were a book in his library, but his pride as Lord and his love for his dead son demanded the reply, demanded closure, such as only I could give him.

A piece of me laughed in crazed and blackest humour then; how low I had fallen, in the shadow of my mother's grace, but still I had the power to make the mighty Avarran Carcarron fail to sleep soundly at night.

I broke our locked gazes, cast mine own to the granite floor. The words were practically whispered, my voice rusty with disuse and weeping. "I am at my liege's mercy." Such little as there was, and would be, for me. I was counting on it, for him to end my misery.

Lord Carcarron could not be alone in his judgement - no, the law required a full seven lords and ladies, each witness, judge and jury, to hear the accused's crimes.

Carcarron did not speak first, blessedly. Instead the Herald went down the line of nobles attendant, beginning with Ciella, the healer who had delivered me of my mother's womb with her own hands. I, the oathbreaker, was forbidden to look upon their faces as I had Avarran Carcarron, so instead I watched, desolate, from the corners of my eyes. A delicate fist extended, a thumb canted for the sky, a surprisingly gravelly voice: "Mercy," pronounced she, and the whispers rippled outward from the court like tide.

Next Asric, captain of the Lord's guard where I had been Raum's, his voice deep and his hands callused and striped with scars, one thumb for the granite floor: "Death."

And Callyan, mistress of blades, Avarran's sometime lover since his wife's death years ago, hands ringed with black and red and white where the tattoos of her station showed; another thumb for the floor, and a powerful "Death!" for those attendant, her voice echoing unbearably in the chamber.

_He will not marry her,_ that morbid, distant part of me thought, _and that is why she is mad all the time._

A snort of manic laughter escaped my twisted lips, almost soundless, but Carcarron saw, and raised his eyebrow. I bowed my head again and shut my eyes, identifying the remainder of my judges by voice alone.

Pentarus Lockstep next, Carcarron's spymaster, a slender man with a quiet voice concealing a will of steel: "Mercy," said he unexpectedly, and the wave of whispers was twice the noise and depth of the first. I wished I could have seen Avarran's face when his most ardent ally spoke in my support.

Fifth was Sryddan Redfeather, master of falcon, built like a blacksmith and the tallest man in all of Carcarron, with ferocity to match: "Death," he rumbled, basso-profundo, and my heart rose. Perhaps I would be granted release after all.

After him came blind Kyaran, Carcarron's high sorceress, aged and wise. Her soprano warbled with the wight of the years, but her wisdom and mind were still sword-sharp: "Mercy," cried she. "I leave the decision with you, Avarran. Aion guide your heart." I heard her cane tap the flagstones as she turned away.

As Avarran Carcarron pondered my judgement, tie-breaker in the decision of my fate as he had always been, I silently blessed old Kyaran. Carcarron's decision would surely be death, surely be the kind of mercy my people do not wish for nor contemplate, but happily mete out -

"Mercy," said the Lord, so softly, like a lover's whisper. I looked up in shock and despair, feeling the blood drain from my face, my cheeks turn ashen, my eyes widen. It was the one thing I could not have guessed. Carcarron was a warlord, liege of armies of soldiers, a general first and foremost, lauded for his thirst and skill in battle -

"No," I gasped, unable to prevent its escape. Carcarron's eyes bored holes in me, pupils the size of pinpricks, his will more obdurate than the very mountains. He had discovered the desire to make me suffer.

"Yes," he said, louder, more forcefully. Whether Aion was with him that day or not, I will never forget him pushing himself out of his chair to stand tall and strong, his voice ringing through the court, echoing across the granite and bouncing through the rafters. I did not see the reaction of the crowd, nor the lords and ladies; my eyes were only for him, Avarran Carcarron, the spectre of what Raum was to become. He laid judgment upon my penitent form and never regretted a moment of it. "Jaya Azhdeen, formerly of Carcarron, I strip you of all rank and title and banish you from my lands. You will be taken by convoy to the White Barrow, interred there as a prisoner, and remain there for as many years until I or another liege of Pandaemonium chooses to grant you freedom. Though little enough has come of it as yet," he growled, narrowing his eyes at me, "the bloodline must be preserved."

It struck me like a physical blow, a spear through the chest. I had taken an Elysian gladiator's sword full through my shoulder at Rivenstone, and though that wound had long since healed, the arm once more capable of battle due to Ciella's art, it pulsed then, raw and fiery as if it had been newly struck. The agony chained me to earth when my mind would have flown from anguish, pain radiating down my arm and across my back like molten metal.

Staggered, I managed an uncertain pair of words, palms pressed to my left shoulder over the pink scars beneath my garment. "M-my brother?"

"Is of far more use and talent than his sister," said Carcarron, easing back down into his throne, but how his eyes burned in his chiseled face! "He will remain at the Academe; I will send a courier notifying him of your fate."

So I would not be allowed to even say goodbye to the sole person in all Atreia who would be grieved by my absence. I set my chin, forced my head down once more; Jareth would not be allowed to leave Synedell until his graduation as a mage, and it was clearly Carcarron's intent that I not visit.

I recited the coraline then for the first time in days, one step at a time, not needing my beads to keep track of the stations, praying at last for something other than Raum's life, my death. I prayed Jareth would be happy, that he would see sense and resist the temptation to come for me. I prayed he would do well, and not let his heritage or his nerves ruin his chances at a life greater than mine would have ever been. He had inherited all of our mother's talent; thus I had been left with none, and see where that had gotten me.

"Yes, my liege," I whispered, and pressed my hands harder to my shoulder to hide my trembling fingers.

That seemed to be the sign, the cue that the court was waiting for, my acquiescence to my fate. Activity resumed immediately; the Herald spoke, and Carcarron issued orders, and the lords and ladies dispersed. I heard none of their words. I instead remained kneeling on the granite, hunched on on myself, cold and alone, awaiting my guards to escort me to the White Barrow, a place where Asmodian and Elysian children alike are told they will be sent if they do not behave.

The touch at my burning shoulder was gentle, however, not rough; I looked up and there was Ciella, her hair turning white with age and lines seaming her face. She had been a friend of my mother's, I remembered then, terribly. She had not been at Carcarron during the siege long ago, could not have saved her. Perhaps she was attempting amends with Aion, then, by caring so lovingly for her children.

Ciella did not speak. Instead she flashed me a haunted, taut smile, the wan look of those reconciled to the damned, slipped something cool and knobby under my tremulous hands, and then turned away, the last I ever saw of her. When I opened my fingers to examine it, tears at last spilled over the boundary of my lashes, and shamefully I wept in the bright view of all of Carcarron, pressing the beads of my jade coraline to my chest so hard they left bruises.

Raum had given then to me as a birthing-day gift, when he and I and my brother were children. I wept over them as soldiers were delegated for the journey to the Barrow, wept as I was shepherded into my wheeled cage filled with straw and pulled by beasts of burden, wept as I left Carcarron for what I knew would be the final time.

I managed one clear glance at the shadowed tor later, far off from the Keep I had been born and raised in, fixing its image in my mind as my escort toiled us away from all I had ever truly known. Raum was dead, Avarran had made certain of my suffering, and Ciella's kindness had made me undone.

I curled up in the straw and slept, still weeping in my dreams, not looking forward nor back. I cast myself on the winds of fate, and hoped half-sleeping that something terrible would befall me before I reached the White Barrow.

Ah, foolish child that I was, I should have known better than to wish for something I did not know the depths of. Aion must have been laughing.


	2. Chapter 2

Being sick at heart and too weak to stand, I remember little besides the weather of the journey toward the White Barrow. Betimes it was cool and clear, the distant Atreian sun casting my world in dusk, then seeming bright as an Elysian day to my untrained eyes; betimes it was warm and muggy, the broad handfuls of leaves high above shading us from the light. But mostly, it rained. On and on and on, endless rain, hot as kettle-sweat or cold as spears of ice, obscuring the road both fore and back, till it seemed as if we would perpetually travel this road, caught in a cruel loop of time like Vyra Lightning-Branded and her band of ghosts, winging always and forever for the base of the broken Tower, never reaching their destination.

I lay in the straw in my cage and watched it all pass with unseeing eyes, reciting my coraline over and over again in my worst moments, the beads wrapped tightly around one fist. They were fobbed at the end with a septagon etched with the ancient Twinned Duchy seal, created before Carcarron was united, a pair of falcons locking claws in conflict. At some point I had flipped the septagon into my palm to hide the image in my flesh, though I do not remember having done so.

Thinking on the Twinned Duchy, my chest ached as I recalled Raum, Jareth and I as children in the great library at the Keep, hunting treasures, and if not that, then books about treasure. Raum had been very smug and proud, relaying the history of the lands that would one day have been his - if not for my failure.

Sometime during the journey, I know not how many days after setting out from Carcarron, I found myself softly singing the seventh verse from _The Lay of a Broken-Winged Sparrow._ Those guards that heard me shivered and glanced away. I likely should have stopped, given the song's history, but I did not. The haunting refrain of the tragic ballad somewhat soothed my wounded heart.

It was somewhere around the tenth stanza that the Elyos came down from the mountains, silver wings purple in the Asmodian dusk, silent and deadly as owls on the hunt.

There were no Daevas among my escort; that breed was increasingly rare among us as the long war raged ever on, and new souls did not ascend in their places. I realize now that they are only slightly more numerous among the Elyos, but I did not know it then. Even through the thick of my broken-hearted depression, I saw their band descend from on high, feathers and armor shining, a half-dozen white-winged Daevas more than a match for a troop of mortals twice their numbers.

I had not the energy to lift my head from the straw, but I bore witness to the massacre that followed, and my claws scraped the back of the septagon as I clenched my fist.

The beasts broke first. Having never seen an Elyos, much less a Daeva, they panicked and reared and kicked in the harness, each powerful beast pulling in opposite directions. The first broke a leg in its scrambling and went down lowing and shrieking; the second won free of the cart and dashed for the safety if the violet trees, half the harness and assorted bits of tack jangling from its withers. It trampled a soldier and knocked another aside from where they stood at the vanguard of the convoy; the second soldier was cut down by an Elyos blade before he could regain his feet, and the first given release from his injuries in the form of a pierced heart.

They moved through my escort like a wind scatters leaves, cutting down whomsoever dared step in their path. No magic; pulls on the Aether would have alerted anyone tied to it from miles away, spurring investigation, and if this attack was anything it was quick, quiet and efficient. That was something the Elyos excelled at - hit and run tactics.

I forced myself to listen to them die, the brave fifteen or so who had been destined for an uneventful journey and a sedentary posting at the Barrow. _I bring death to everything I touch,_ I thought bitterly, hearing their screams, the gasps as they were disemboweled, the gurgles as their throats were slashed. The enemies were cloaked, their faces masked with darkness, but I stared at their wings, memorized what subtle differences I could discern. Four men, I guessed, two women; though my body was sunken into the straw, in the heart of a battle my mind was honed keen, and only faltered once. A pair of grey knife-blade wings, pointed and sleek, like those of a gyrefalcon. A paler pair, stubby, barred with gold like an owl's, short but powerful. Broad pure white wings, that of a swan. A slender set, slate and bluish, tipped gunmetal silver - a peregrine. I only caught glimpses of the last two, and would know them for what they were later: an immense albatross, the span of either wing greater than he was tall, paired to a tiny, indescribably violent young woman with the wings of a shrike.

Fifteen men and women, caught by surprise on a journey that should have had nothing to commend its normalcy. They fell in a sickeningly short amount of time, at which the six assailants gathered at my cage, and the gyre and the owl peered through their hoods into the depths of my bars, the owl leaning forward as if fascinated by the animal in the cage.

I eyed them all, prone, claws digging furrows in Raum's jade coraline, hoping that at last here was the face of my salvation. They spoke then, tongue lyrical and flowing, and tantalizingly familiar; I was briefly caught listening intently, hearing gasps and snatches of words that might once have been the language I know. Separated for millenia, we yet were born to the same cradle, eons ago, a fact both races have forgotten. The owl-winged Elyos was clearly their leader, speaking the lion's share of the piece in a deep, belling voice, and even the gyre deferred to him, head bowing. There was much discussion, included a heated series of remarks from the swan that needed no translation, but eventually even he bent to the owl's will. As I was attempting to puzzle out their intent, all but the owl began to move, the littlest one up into the air to act as a scout, the others freeing my cage of the great wooden wheels binding it to the road, to loop rope about it as if they meant to carry me off.

Realizing their intent, I felt a sudden burst of energy from within my soul as never I had before, deep reserves of fury and desperation that I had not yet even begun to tap flaring to life. I surged up from the straw and slammed into the cage's wooden bars, inches from the owl as he took a prudent step back. My claws reached to snatch him and shake him until he did my bidding, the coraline pendulous and swinging erratically. My hands missed, unfortunately, catching only a hem and revealing briefly a golden eye, but I was not yet done; I railed against the bars, beating my fists and the coraline against them, bellowing every foul word that I had ever heard spoken in Carcarron. "Kill me!" I commanded, begged, fire in my veins in a last desperate effort to provoke the Elyos. I would not willingly be their prisoner, their caged Asmodian nightingale, there to poke and prod whenever they pleased. "I know you know that word," I snarled at him, "you've heard it often enough! _Kill me!"_

Work paused overhead, and the owl's hood seemed to glance upward, nodding, giving permission. A face then appeared from over the top edge of the cage, upside-down, the hood spilled open by gravity to reveal proud masculine features, sharp cheekbones, wisps of rebellious pale hair. What pinned me in place were his enormous, liquid, shockingly black eyes - I had never heard of such on an Elyos, even in the old tales. Anger tightened them to narrow slits, made of his mouth a scowl.

"No," said he then in a clear, resonant tenor, and I stopped cold in shock and sheer surprise, to hear an Elyos speak a word of Asmoth. His voice gave feathers to the face - the gyrefalcon.

"No?" I echoed, dumbly, hands trembling on the bars. I suddenly felt very, very cold, the heat of my temper leaking out of me.

"Your life is a property," spoke the gyre, with a strange lilting accent but in words clearly of my speech, "that now belongs to the house of the sun."

I had thought I knew what despair was, when Raum died. It dawned on me then, in the face of the gyre's hostility, that I had not even begun to fathom its depths.

And yet, staring at the enemy, it was not in me to surrender to their keeping.

The gyre flared his knife-blade wings then with a great rush of air, signaling the end of his half of the brief conversation, though I pressed against the bars and still attempted to heckle him into speech. Whatever I called, I do not remember, only that I cursed him with all the fluency and creativity that I had, and in the thickest Carcarrese brogue I could muster to boot. I craned my neck this way and that, and I could just see from where I stood where he tied clever knots with his pale hands, creating something akin to harness, something four Elyos could carry aloft. I slammed my fist against the bars once more, impotent anger returning to my aid, giving me strength, and the cage shuddered under the gyre's feet. "What the hell are you doing?!"

No response, though owl and gyre both eyed me disapprovingly; there were more calls in Elyan, their native tongue, and I railed at the bars, climbing feet and hands with the claws on each to brace at the wood and shake the cage entire. There was a feminine voice from above, of warning as one of the bars groaned and budged at last under my fury; then the owl shot into the air and the gyre and his kind followed, four strong Elyos yoked in tandem, and there was the edgeless sounds of a flock of mismatched wings as they strained to gain the skies. The cage shook again, this time with the force of the Elyos fighting gravity.

I worked frantically, using all my strength and weight to work the wooden bar out of its cladding - if I could get it out quickly enough, I could escape before the Elyos gained any altitude - or drop from the height, and end my misery the hard way. I heard the owl shout, another male bellow with effort, heard the groan of rope above and of wood below. A line holding my cage had whipped free, as had the lower edge of the bar in my hands, just above the cladding. I kicked it loose, somewhat more viciously than was strictly necessary, and it fell and kept falling; the Elyos were gaining altitude far more quickly than I could have ever hoped, and as the ground rapidly abandoned me, I smiled bleakly.

Another call as they noticed the wooden spar now angling like a star for the earth. In a trice they would see my intent and likely do all they could to stop it, but I meant to be long free of that cage by then, and leaping to action I worked myself through the gap between the remaining bars. Though my mother was slender by Asmodian standards, training broadened my shoulders, gave me slabs of tough sinew where she had had none. I ended up wedging myself in the wood, struggling to writhe free, all limbs strained to their strength, my vision purpling as my lungs were compressed. There was a long, long moment, spots playing games in my eyesight, when I thought that the cage would squeeze the life from me and I need not go through the trouble of escaping the Elyos -

I slipped free, but just as the flailing rope was secured, and my cage realigned itself with the Elyos ferrying it rather than with the winds that buffeted them all. I began to fall, one leg below the knee still within the bars, but the pit of my stomach rose and I laughed that horrid laugh of the damned, knowing that once I was out of the backwash of wings, it would take precious seconds for the Elyos to disentangle themselves from the ropes and drop the cage. The sky reeled before me, and I welcomed the fall. By then, not even the peregrine could catch me...

Ah, too soon I celebrated my morbid victory. The cage took another strange tilt in the air, and my calf and leg dragged the wooden floor, the calf mutilated by the splintered cladding, and my ankle trapped in that narrow space between it and the next bar. I found this out in such detail as was necessary later; all I knew then was that my leg was suddenly in blinding white agony, my head snapping back from recoil, and I was dangling from the cage with all the blood in my body rushing to my brain.

"Damnation!" I twisted this way and that, my temples swiftly beginning to pound, and screeched when I wrenched my knee and ankle in precisely the wrong way. Blood began to drip down the back of my thigh, warm and thin as water, but I refused to think of it as my own blood, my own leg, trapped like a fox in a bear killer. That way lay only panic, and I needed a cool head both to thwart the Elyos and to achieve my goal of reaching my end.

Someone else's leg up there, grinding bone against shards of metal and wood. Someone _else._ I took a gasping breath, tears stinging my eyes, and amidst a wave of pain so scarlet and strong that I thought I would pass out then and there, I tried to wrench my body upright, to reach my ankle.

I failed. My hand brushed the knee, my other leg flopping uselessly in the air, and ripples of agony thundered across my leg and back and skull. I came very close to the blackness then, the world spinning madly around me, sky below and ground above. I wondered for one crazed, manic second if this was how the Elyos always saw Asmodae, land for the ceiling and sky for the floor.

The frenetic bellowing of voices in Elyan, a musical tongue turned invective. Head throbbing, I swept my gaze across what little I could see that was not great clouded expanse or rolling indigo forest or farmland. The Elyos had little enough attention for me, and when I detected a note of relief in their voices I quickly saw why: I had read of the larger ones, the great stone edifices that demarcated the edges of the enormous and ancient Portals, but there were none such in Carcarron or any of the surrounding lands. The Elyos had instead constructed a smaller one, maybe ten feet across, wood and stone and the bones of the fallen, a strange sight saddled amid an empty field, even stranger seen upside-down. _A strike team, then,_ I thought woozily. No camp, no occupying force, only swift, disorienting attacks and a hasty retreat before the enemy realized what had happened.

The six Elyos dove as one, owl and gyre and peregrine, winging together for the makeshift portal and the safety that it provided. I, coming all too late to its horrors, unabashedly screamed.

It was a close fit; the owl was through first, his stubby wingtips brushing gently the fragile edges of the portal, and he disappeared into the swirling void of orange mist. The shrike followed him, too fast for my eye, and then the cage bearers were upon it and I realized that there was no way in all of Atreia would four winged Daevas, the cage and myself all fit. It happened quickly, the two forerunners releasing the cage, winking their feathers to dust and aether, and diving bodily through the portal; the two behind them, gyre and peregrine, followed a heartbeat after, sure above all things to get themselves clear of the wreckage of the cage that rode their wake.

I, in the grip of a fear I had not felt since I was a child, was dragged along for the ride.

I hit the mist, and my stomach rebelled at the sense of being flung through time and space, but was so brief that I managed to retain that dignity, and not evacuate the contents of my belly. The scenery changed abruptly once across, no longer outdoors but in a bright-lit chamber, so bright it hurt to blink. The cage skidded to a stop on stone floors amidst a scattering of Elyos, some vaulting out of the way to avoid being run over by the battered wooden conveyance. I struck my head sharply on the flagstones on entry, the makeshift bindings of the portal crumbling behind me, but otherwise tried to curl in on myself to prevent further harm. Once I was no longer moving, no longer throbbing with adrenaline, the pain from my leg came back and overwhelmed me; I lay on my back, unmoving and dazed, and I do not think that if Ariel Lady of Light Herself had promised me freedom and a cadre of Daevas as personal attendants, that I could have stirred from where I had fallen.

My eyes, wincing at the brightness, sought some sort of touchstone in the alien place. Stone walls, an entire legion of candles. A tall, young-looking man with a wild fluff of golden hair, two days of stubble, an irrepressible smile and the sense of eons of age and experience. He wore the robes of a sorcerer, and as he bent over me his face swam, as though I looked at him through a glass of water. He asked me something in Elyan, or at least it seemed so at the time; I stuttered an "I don't understand" in Asmoth, and he looked away to glance at someone I could not see, a scholarly concern lighting his cyan eyes. I heard the gyre speak again, his words like ice, the owl's baritone calm, persuasive.

Lassitude flowed through my veins, the pain dropped to the background, and I felt the sudden need to sleep. I found it difficult to care that the owl, the gyre and the sorcerer had sparked a sudden argument, the Elyan words, so tantalizingly familiar and yet so foreign, flowed too quickly to gain even the barest sense of it. After a moment, I sighed and allowed my eyes to close, too dizzy to stand, too tired to fight.

_Let Aion have me, if he will_, I thought, willing myself to dreams and finding, for once, that they came easily. The bickering Elyos faded away, and blessed silence claimed me as I sought the long path down into darkness.

I heard a man's chuckle, distant like a rumble of thunder, and thought no more upon anything.


	3. Chapter 3

Though I'm sure that the pain would have woken me eventually, it was the light that did so first; a blazing supernova, a bonfire focused and magnified, boiling my blood and blinding my eyes. I came to agonizingly slowly, aware of my body by inches, of my surroundings by centimeters. The first thing I did when I regained motor function was inventory my fingers and toes; finding nothing amiss, I rolled over and crawled out of the light, my leg throbbing, first dull then sharp as knives.

Knives - the knife-blade wings of the gyre, and the broken cage, the interrupted journey -

I moaned. Too much to hope that I had dreamed it all.

I found myself a tiny, somewhat darkened corner, and from between my fingers, veiling my eyes, I began to scout my prison. White stone formed the walls, twice my height or more, crowned in plastered wood with an enormous glass skylight. The sun burned magnificently overhead, brighter than I have ever seen it, a captured star harnessed especially for my torment; I could not look upward for more than a few moments before my eyes began to water, and instead I surveyed what else I could find. A stolid door, wood and metal bindings painted white, staid and imposing. No window in it as found in Asmodian prisons, merely a whole-hewn gate bereft of handle or even hinges, the great beams riveted together with bands of what was likely steel. All told the room was perhaps eight feet by eight at the corners and easily twice that at the crown, enough to stand and stretch and pace, and little else.

No pallet to suffocate myself with; no handy bowl of soup in which to drown. I cursed the Elyos silently to eternities of such torture as they now inflicted upon me, placing me in such a bright space with only Aion knew how long until my inevitable visitor.

The leg was well-tended, at the least, swathed in cloth that was only now soaking through where I must have torn a stitch; it did not burn with the fire of infection, but then again, I'd no idea how long I'd been parted from the waking world. It could have been hours, even days. My shoulder pulsed to echo my leg's throb, the older injury likely revived from the hectic ride I had taken to arrive here, and serving to remind me of the dangers of being a mortal amidst the affairs of Daevas, however unwillingly I was taken into them.

Curled in that slightly shaded corner, with nothing to do other than wait, I drowsed, the warmth very conducive to napping when it was not trying to cause me to combust. The sun overhead never seemed to move, until all at once it was somewhat dimmer, its great white eye no longer focused solely upon melting the glass of my skylight. With no sense other than that, I surmised that an Elysean night was not unlike an Asmodian day in some respects: whereas in my homeland the sun never truly rose, in Elysea it never truly set, only lessened its magnification.

The jade coraline were gone, again. I mourned that loss a second time, reckoning it lost in the pell-mell journey to gain the portal.

There was no sound I could hear through the stone walls, no signal to anticipate when the white door swung open, there to reveal a pair of too-familiar faces: the narrow, hawkish features of the gyre, and the blond sorcerer who carried within him so much power that even I had no trouble discerning it. I managed to sit upright, still shading my eyes with both hands, my injured leg curled beneath me; I gauged my chances of stealing past them and gaining the open door, muscles tensing, but that brief hope was dashed by the sight of a small garrison of soldiers beyond the pair's shoulders, and the white door once again swinging shut.

The gyre had doffed his cloak and stood attired in sleek black leathers, a pair of swords at his hips, daggers tucked into the belt, throwing knives in the furrows of his boots; I guessed that there were weapons concealed in every possible place around his person, perhaps even in the jagged tufts of silvery white hair that brushed his eyebrows. The sorcerer, by contrast, wore simple robes in shades of blue and purple, unarmed, but I knew with a single glance at those cyan eyes that he need not carry a weapon to be formidable. They spoke between themselves a moment, the gyre cold, the sorcerer terse. Then the gyre abruptly switched over to Asmoth, and as if fresh again, the shock of hearing the words from Elysian lips burrowed into my bones anew.

"We wish to know your name."

I laughed, a morbid, desperate laugh; the change in the gyre's night-black eyes was worth the punishment my insolence might receive. "What does it matter to you? I am a prisoner of war."

"Elyos do not treat their prisoners as slaves." A pause; he did not glance aside, but I knew he could practically feel the stare of the sorcerer upon his face. "The house of the sun holds you as a guest."

"House of the sun?" I echoed, then thought about the words; _Helios,_ came the connection. A word in my language, but a family name in his. I stared at the gyre and the sorcerer, bared my teeth. "Me, _a guest?_ You're awfully high-handed for a _thief._"

I was rewarded by the gyre visibly bridling, and was not smart enough to rest upon my laurels, instead laughing again. The sorcerer placed a warning hand on the gyre's shoulder as the latter went for a sword at his hip; I threw Asmoth words at him, fast and slurred, hoping to maske him struggle to understand. "Have I ruffled your _feathers,_ Elyos? You've nothing to gain from me, and I suggest you end this game before your friend ends it for you. I am dead already. I have nothing to fear from your threats."

The gyre calmed, remarkably quickly, a feat I could not have believed had I not seen it, the flash of his anger gone as suddenly as it had appeared. "I suppose if I am to demand your name," said he, calm but sour, "it is only proper to offer my own." A little mockery of a bow, his black eyes hating me and hating what I was with every word he spat, like venom. "Your people know me as Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night."

I am not too proud to admit that at this pronouncement, I choked. Oh yes, I knew that name, just as he would know my mother's from the old tales, had I deigned to tell him. Here before me stood a Daeva with some two centuries' of reputation and lore, said to have infiltrated the palace of Asphel Lord of Darkness alone and assassinated Asphel's own spymaster, a demigod in his own right. My eyes tracked wordlessly to the cyan-eyed sorcerer, who managed with a cocked eyebrow and the nod of a head something less approaching open contempt. I expected another figure of legend; I was not disappointed when he voiced his name. "Terekai."

Terekai Nameless; it had been his aether-driven fire that consumed my mother whole.

My fingers twitched, and I smelled the barest whiff of smoke.

The next thing I was aware of were a half-dozen mortal Elyos soldiers pulling me off of him, every limb and claw I had flailing wildly in the vain effort to reach him, Terekai himself standing clamly at the wall with a more calculating, appraising look about him. Watching my furious self and body as if from a great distance, I wondered if he recognized me, and if he had, would he blithely give the secret of my lineage away. It seemed not, for though the gyre also looked at me differently, it was not with an air of even the respect one gives a rabid dog, and Terekai remained silent and did not correct him.

The soldiers threw me into my corner, and I felt another stitch in my leg burst, biting back a cry of pain. I would not so much as whimper in the presence of the Elyos, that much I hotly swore, instead thudding a fist against the white stone floor and leaving a bloody imprint. The soldiers backed, seeing if I was in the mood to try again; their expressions said that they would have welcomed the challenge, and so I denied them of it, instead laying prone and listening as carefully as I could to their speech. Detecting patterns in Elyan became easier now that I had heard a bit more of the gyre's strange lilting in Asmoth, hearing similarities in the soldiers.

However, it seemed I was not yet done with my visitors. The gyre parted the wall of soldiers and knelt, drawing from a hidden pocket my jade coraline, dangling it before me, like treasure, like bait. I made a feeble attempt for it and he pulled it away high, well out of my reach until I could convince my treacherous leg to hold my weight, and that would not be for some weeks. I snarled at him wordlessly, watching him, and he watched me in turn with those onyx eyes; at last, he said, shaking the coraline so that the fob began to sway aimlessly, "The price is a name."

I despised him in that moment, despised him with everything I had, and could not answer for the force of my hatred welling in my throat. He shrugged and began to tuck it away; I snatched his wrist in my hand, my claws digging into the leather, enough to warn, but not to harm. I would not be brought to heel so easily.

"Jaya." And I hated myself, for even betraying that. Ourobouros stared at me, as if he had not expected even that tiny acquiescence.

A sharply exhaled breath, a snort or perhaps soundless laughter; he yanked his wrist free of my hold, but poured the coraline into my waiting palm, then stood and turned. He mumbled a few words in Elyan that I strained to hear, and then gyre, Terekai and soldiers all made their way out, shutting the white door behind them.

I almost threw my coraline at them, but having been parted from it twice, I was in no mood to tempt Fate a third time. Instead I stared at it in my palm, contemplating how much force I would need to exert on it to strangle myself with it, wondering idly if the stringing would hold. It occured to me then that I had not yet even considered the fate of Jenica Poeset, a mortal commander captured by Elyos centuries ago who had chosen to bite off her own tongue rather than share with the enemy her knowledge. It was a messy, painful death as one bled profusely until the heart had nothing left upon which to beat, but it was one that even a skilled priest might not be able to prevent.

The coraline swayed as my hand shook, contemplating it. I shut my fingers over it, held it to my heart, and allowed the knowledge to dawn that perhaps I hadn't been as suicidal as my honor demanded, not since the convoy had been attacked. Even when the Elyos had stolen me away, my thoughts had been first for escape, not death.

What had he said, under his breath as he sought the door?

_Miset mou kai zeira,_ I thought, slumping against the wall, picking up this mental puzzle to work at while I waited, knowing the time would be interminable. My leg hurt, but I ignored it.

'Miset' was easiest - its counterpart in Asmoth was 'miseo', to hate. I knew that word very well, and thought it was like to become a companion during the time to come. The rest of it was a mystery, and I supposed it to mean something like 'I despise all your kind' or the like.

Thinking on it as hard as I could, I resolved to solve the riddle of Elyan without my captors' knowledge. If only I had known what aid I would receive in that pursuit, or how it would change the course of my Fate perhaps I would not have sworn it so lightly.

There was a pattern to the days that followed; meals brought by pairs or triplets of soldiers at 'dawn' and 'dusk', often with a medic or low-grade priest trainee to have a look at my leg, and when the sun was highest overhead Ourobouros would visit and pester me with questions, each time with a different Elyos in attendance, as thought they feared what would occur if we were to be alone. Either he or Terekai had had the wisdom not to attempt a second conference with the sorcerer present; I continued to be hostile to those who showed me disrespect, and if they thought me a savage for it, well, I was being treated no better than one in the first place.

The second day in my cell, Ourobouros brought a tiny woman with robin's-egg blue pigtails and a honeyed complexion, attired in thick metal greaves, a side-tie bikini and bandeau top, and little else. The choices the Elyos make in which armor to fight in perpetually mystify me, and I should have guessed her identity on her famous lack of clothing alone. It was the mismatched eyes that gave her away, however, one green and one bright purple; Nico the Butcher, or Nicolette Sethes as she was introduced to me, a Gladiator champion with the wings of a shrike, known for her propensity for violence.

She seemed sweet enough to the naked eye, however, smiling and laughing, naming the gyre 'Oros' and giggling when it discomfited him.

That, I had no qualms about picking up on very swiftly. It made him frown disapprovingly.

"You are Carcarrese, I assume?" he asked me that day, attempting to seem unperturbed.

"Why would you say that?" I said, fixing him with a stare that I knew made the worst of my mercurial irises. "Do not all Asmodians seem the same to you? _Vermin_ for the slaughter."

"I am aware that Asmodians have tribal divisions," said Oros, somewhat stiffly.

"We have our own cities, keeps, provinces, even farmland." I folded my arms and shifted a bit in my corner. "Bloodlines and noble Houses, just as you do. Only, we are somewhat less prone to fighting amongst ourselves until entire bloodlines are wiped away, all for the sake of the Silver Rose of Sanctum."

I referred to the _Stargazers Cycle,_ of course, an Elysian tale of civil war and revenge, based in fact, that had made its way to Asmodae through Shugo smugglers. Oros paled as if struck and actually leaned somewhat away from me, completely caught of his guard that I was aware of the tale. It took him a breath to regain his composure, upon which he fired a volley of his own.

"The ballad you sang, the day we captured you," said he, watching me closely. "That was _The Lay of a Broken-Winged Sparrow,_ was it not? Your people have their own share of bloody tales."

I stared at him, openly, jaw slack, before I regained a mental toehold. "But, the Lay is a love story."

Oros arched one fine, pale brow in disbelief, and again surprised me with the depth of his knowledge. "Was it not written by Arkain Carcarron, after Mishuvel the Pale betrayed him and defected to his usurper brother at Rivenstone?"

Hearing this shook me, shook me deeply, for I thought then that the only way that Oros could have learned this was from a native of Carcarron itself. I began to worry, and thoughts such as where he had heard this, and who taught him the speech of my people, started flitting across my mind like spastic hummingbirds. It took a moment to form the proper answer. "No." I faltered; coughed, and forged on, my voice stronger with every word. "No, it was written _by_ Mishuvel _for_ Arkain, after his brother pushed him from the Crown of Nails, and she retook the Twinned Duchy. It is considered one of the greatest love stories of my people." I paused. "But the Lay is an ill-luck song."

He looked interested again. "Then why were you singing it when we came upon you? We'd not have found you if not for that."

I hadn't known that was how they found the convoy; a fresh wave of shame crested and broke, and I moved my gaze from the gyre's face to the floor. Superstition or no, I had brought the enemy down upon the caravan with my carelessness, and now fifteen innocent Asmodians lay rotting while I lived in an Elyos cage. "I was not careful in what I wished for."

He asked me no more questions that day, only collected Nico the Butcher and exited, to leave me to stew in my own self-loathing.


	4. Chapter 4

On the morning of the third day when the soldiers brought my meal - colourless, tasteless hot mush, as usual, filling and likely nutritious but not exactly a joy to eat - I drank only a little water and refused the food, giving the troops only my desolate profile, striving to appear distant and sick at heart. It was less because I was ill and more because I wished to see what the gyre would do; my Elyos guards talked among themselves agitatedly as I feigned weakness, cursing with frequence (what little I knew of Elyan was mainly fluent swearing and improbable acts committed upon the self with a spoon), and one was even brazen enough to get down on his knees and yell in syllables at me. I blinked then, staring as he pantomimed eating the mush, pondering why he thought that saying the words louder and slower would suddenly allow me to comprehend.

In the end, I blanked my face, pointed to the door with a faux-trembling arm, and turned my head away. Though the soldier had unwittingly helped me along in my pursuit to covertly learn Elyan, it was not to be without its consequences. When the gyre came that day, it was an hour or so early (I was also learning to judge time against the intractable sun) and in the company of a graceful and tall figure I recognized dimly, but only by his outline. The swan-winged Daeva, it seemed, was in fact a male, pale and lanky where Nicolette had been dark and graceful, and he bustled into my cell with all the businesslike mien of a cook who has scented a flawed meal in his kitchen. I saw Oros's mouth twitch at the corner when the swan beelined for me, made a knee uncomfortably close to my corner, and moved swiftly in an attempt to lay hands on my bandaged leg.

I realized his intent and yanked it away, curling it beneath me, and made a swipe with my claws, hissing furiously. He abruptly jerked himself back and stand, just out of my reach, his thick blonde plait whirling like a cracked whip, expression filled to brimming with mute, arrogant rage for this creature who would dare to attack him. If I had been able to I would have lunged for him for his discourtesy; instead I made do with baring my fangteeth, an almost feline expression of wrath. He harangued me in Elyan, levelly but clearly maddened, and turned to glare at Oros and share the wealth of his displeasure. Oros, Aion help him, was attempting his best to resist the need to burst into peals of laughter, mouth twitching spasmodically as he held it inward. I scowled at him along with the swan.

When Oros dared to test the evenness of his voice, it was in Asmoth. "This is Kiert Fireheart, Jaya. He is our resident cleric. He's here to look at your leg."

"Lost a bet, did he?" I shot back, not about to lower my guard even though the gyre was on the edge of mirthful tears.

"You could say that." His mouth twitched again, and he visibly reined himself in. "Someone told him no one could stand us for more than a month's posting without losing their mind. Kiert has been here for nearly half a year. A personal best."

"Who is 'us'?" I asked, suspicious, narrowing my eyes somewhat. It was at this juncture, however, that Kiert chose to break in in clipped, brisk Elyan, the first sentence or two directed at Oros, and then another at me. I only caught a word here and there, eerie reflections of my native tongue, but the venom with which he spat his intonations needed absolutely no translation.

I did not feel inclined to be manhandled, nor treated as a beast instead of an Asmodian. "I wouldn't piss on you if you were _on fire_," I snarled at Kiert, "and I'm sure as hell not letting you touch my leg! _Get out!_" I managed to half-stand, using the wall for support, and pointed at the door emphatically, mentally hoping, daring him to come within range of my hands.

Kiert opened his mouth to bellow at me, no doubt some offended epithet involving my heritage and his unwillingness to deal with a foul beast such as me, but at that moment Oros _completely_ lost it. Both Kiert and I stared in utter befuddlement as the tall, lithe form of Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night, terror of the shadows, slid helplessly down the wall, knees weak, hands clutching his sides, eyes squeezed shut and his clear, resonant tenor belling out waves of pure joyous laughter. I had never heard an Elyos laugh; I was somewhat awestruck and somewhat suspicious, a reasonable reaction to the spectacle, while Kiert Fireheart stewed in his own juices, glaring such daggers of hate at Oros that his viridian gaze would have flattened a lesser man.

Eventually the gyrefalcon wiped the tears from his onyx eyes and regained his feet, a smirk still playing about his lips, and thus recalled to duty he made a flowery translation of a few more of Kiert's angry, terse words. "Madame Jaya, My Lord Daeva Kiert Fireheart asks if you would be inconvenienced by the examination of the lower shank of your left lower limb, in which he suspects an inflammation responsible for your lack of appetite this morningtide."

I rolled my eyes, especially at the mispronunciations on 'inconvenienced' and 'responsible'. "Your Asmoth is _horrific_, Elyos. You sound as if you learnt it out of a book."

"I may have," he said playfully, but behind the laughter, his eyes were guarded. "Will you accede?"

"I did not eat because I wanted to see what you would do," I demurred, trying to hide the rising panic that, yes, I would be forced to let this Elyos cleric lay hands upon me, due to my little prank. The notion gave me an inordinate amount of unease, for no reason I could put to words.

"The wound must be cleaned nonetheless," pressed Oros, sensing that I was stalling and seizing upon that brief weakness, like the hunter-hawk whose wings he bore.

"It has been cleaned quite finely already," I returned, sliding down hard into my corner, my good leg no longer able to hold me. It was a concession that I could not recover from.

"Yesterday," said he. "It will do you good to have it seen by a healer. And besides," he added, flashing that falconer's smile, his hostility abandoned for a more sincere and disconcerting surety, "I would ask you a question about the Lay."

"I'm not allowing him to touch me if all he's going to do is pour salt in the wound," I said, heated, because I suspected Kiert of exactly that motive; as I said, a healthy dose of paranoia is the trait of any well-adjusted Asmodian child, and as said Elyos was watching me with hooded eyes and a pinscratch frown between his eyebrows.

"I could extract a promise," said Oros, formally. I looked at him and began to say, _What weight is the word of an Elyos?_ But I bit back the words and thought, _He was not forced to offer the coraline for my name._

_No_, said another piece of me in scorn, _but he has an uncanny sense for what kind of carrot to dangle to achieve his goals. Or his master's goals._

I remembered the owl-winged Daeva with one shining gold eye peeking out from beneath a hood swept briefly aside, and thinking on that, I extended my throbbing leg and folded my arms across my chest. "If he treats me carelessly," I warned both of them, "I'll take off his face."

"He'll have earned it." He did not say with with his usual smirk. He spoke a few quiet words to Kiert, and the swan came forward almost reverently, gaze flicking between my face and my leg. I growled low in my throat, a warning shot across the metaphorical bow, and kneeling he began to very, very carefully peel the bandages back. As he did so, Oros stole my attention with a change of tone: "How is it known, at Carcarron, that the Lay is ill luck?"

I watched Kiert work out of the corner of my eye, ready to smack him away if I felt the slightest twinge above rank of the constant low-level pain from the wound, but answered. "It invites misfortune, wherever it is heard." The memory of indirectly causing the deaths of my escort stung, darkening my cheeks, despite Oros's skeptical look. "Evran Ice-Lance had it first performed at his daughter's wedding, and bride and groom were killed by a stone falling from the temple roof. Zechthy Snow-Shrouded tarried outside a hallway where a noblewoman was reciting it aloud, and the floor gave way beneath his feet, where he proceeded to land in the kitchen cookpot and take several kitchen workers with him several floors down, all the way to the secondary basement. Lumiel Lady of Wisdom decried the rumours of ill luck that surrounded the Lay, and had it sang for her." I paused, and not entirely for effect; the image of that particular story was quite vivid, and likely etched upon the insides of the eyelids of every child raised at Carcarron. That castle's bloodline did not believe in shielding children from history's terrible truths. "Suffice to say it was not a pleasant outcome."

"And yet it is taught to all, and touted as the greatest love tale of all time?" He arched one fine brow, and I flinched somewhat as Kiert lifted my leg to examine the wound from all angles. I sent the swan a bit of a stare.

"Yes. Because it is."

Oros snorted. "And if that doesn't speak to the Asmodian mindset, I don't know what does."

My glare shifted to the gyre, and turned glacially cold. "And what is _that_ supposed to mean, Elyos?"

Oros was saved from speaking more of this monumentally stupid comment by Kiert, who made a sound of exclamation, my ankle held up in the air so that the back of my calf was somewhat exposed and my balance set back too far on my rump. As the Elyos huddled together and stared at the wound, I attempted to peer around my own leg, a process hopeless even under normal circumstances. Kiert pointed at places on my leg, likely where my stitches had popped, speaking in Elyan as he marked them, and Oros made comments every breath or so, he himself not daring to lay hand on my dusky skin. I stewed a bit and let them talk, but my patience was in short supply those days. "Well?"

"It's healing well," said Oros with a tight look about his eyes. "No infection present, but there may be some permanent damage to the leg."

"What kind of _permanent damage?_" I said, growling it to make the fear pounding in my heart distant and insignificant, shrouded in a thin veil of anger.

"You'll likely have a limp for the rest of your life." He paused, grim and sober, as Kiert waxed eloquent in Elyan, his attitude all business as he lowered my leg and began to pull rolls of gauze from his pockets. My heart practically fell out of my chest at the next sentence. "You'll be able to walk, with therapy. There should be very little necrosis of tissue."

"Very little necrosis of tissue?" I'd meant to say it mockingly, but it came out sounding far more pathetic and small than I had ever intended, the voice of a child hearing the bogeyman. Both of the Elyos stopped, Kiert a little open-mouthed as he cut himself short, and I turned away from them and hid my face in my hands, the black pit of shame rearing its ugly head to claim me once more. Daevas. How could they understand? I was a mere mortal; I was not one of Aion's chosen, practically immune to every malady on Atreia other than complete and utter destruction. What was one Asmodian mortal to Elyos Daevas? A pebble on the Long Road, quickly trod over and forgotten?

I gathered myself as quickly and effectively as I could, dropping my hands, jew set in determination, and though it seemed an eternity, it was in truth no more than a brief span of heartbeats. I had already chosen to live in exile; I would _not_ live in despair as well. Gyre and swan stared at me a bit, not sure what to make of this, but I spoke first. "Do the magics of a Daeva cleric work on mortals?"

Oros paused, caught off guard, but recovered quickly enough for my tastes. "Somewhat, but only enough to speed the process. It's something about how much aether a mortal can absorb versus a Daeva." He hesitated again, clearly thinking over speaking the next piece. "Nothing can be undone that has already been done. For a mortal, anyway."

I nodded, curt, and tapped the ball of my bad foot against the flagstones. It hurt, but not as much as not walking would. "Tie it up." Beat. "Please." I supposed that, after all, there were not many purposes for which a captive Asmodian could be turned toward that allowed the Elyos to ignore their victims' injuries, and frankly, I was curious to see in the coming days for what plan I was being kept secreted away. Oros, eyebrows high, simply nodded to Kiert, and the swan began to roll the gauze around my leg, from the arch of my foot clear over the knee, tying deft, tucked knots that would not come undone easily. When finished, the wrapping was a bit tighter than usual and also felt immediately better, and I wondered if he hadn't sneaked a bit of aether into my wound without my noticing. I managed to thank him civilly in Asmoth, and though he didn't understand the words, he must have known their intent; he nodded to me and rose, taking the previous round of filthy bloodied bandages with him.

Oros tarried a moment more, watching me with care, as though he expected me to transform into a raging beast, or perhaps faint like a delicate Elyos sun-maiden. I flicked my eyes to the door and waved him on. Though he took a breath as if to comment, he decided against it once again, and slipped through the white portal, leaving me alone at last.

Therapy, they said.

I waited exactly five heartbeats before I forced myself up off the floor, a frown etched on my features. Painstakingly, using the wall as both guide and crutch, I began to pace around the room on both feet.

The first step was pure agony. My entire leg shook, harder and faster as I forced more weight upon it, and when I managed a halting step it did not entirely dissipate; but nothing snapped, nothing broke, and that heartened my morbid determination. I rested for one ragged breath against the wall, three limbs braced against it for strength, and then I tried again. It didn't get any easier with practice, as I had hoped it would, but my leg responded to my cues, however excruciatingly. I grew overconfident then, and let go of the wall for the last step into the corner parallel my normal one.

The knee gave. I went down with a squawking yelp, and all of my weight landed on exactly the wrong place on my leg. Stars exploded behind my eyes, and the white-walled stone of the cell suddenly went black, air leaving my lungs in what may have been a scream. I curled in on myself, whimpering, and remained like that for only Aion knew how long. When Atreia ceased spinning in my vision and the white bursts of pain had somewhat dissipated, I struggled for even breath.

It was too long coming before I could flop onto my belly and eye the door, panting. No sign of the Elyos reentering, and though my pride took a blow, I had no other way to hide my excursion other than belly-crawling back to my corner, claws scrabbling at the floor, unable to help my efforts with either my injured leg or my fatigued one. I inched across that expanse until my hand touched the cleft of the corner, and there I lay, exhausted, I scarce had the will to life my head and check the wall.

No telltale bloodstains, although the back of my bandage was patchy with disconcerting scarlet.

_Ah well, good enough for a start_, I thought, and lay my head on the wonderfully cold stone to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

If the medics who changed my bandages that night and the following morning noted anything amiss with the muscles of my leg, it was only to tut-tut at the clotted hemorrhages and wrap them even tighter, till the second change of linen had compressed my calf so much that it no longer hurt, much to my delight. In spite of their disapproval, when left alone I continued practice of walking; I had gained a triumphant nine steps the attempt before Oros visited me on the fourth day, in the company of a gangling young man with curly scarlet hair in a long neglected tail, bright turquoise eyes and the sweetest of smiles. In his arms was a cloth-wrapped package, and I eyed it with no little interest or suspicion as the pair entered my captive abode.

"What trick is up your sleeve this time, Elyos?" I said, guarded. The gyre merely smiled at me, the bland, pretty one he used as a screen.

"This is Trist," said he, gesturing to the lanky redhead, who bowed somewhat, a motion that reminded me of a scarecrow at odds with a gale. "Nico reported to him the on your state, and he relayed to us a desire to help you."

"Help me?" I narrowed my eyes at them, hair at the back of my neck standing on end. Trist, much to my inner horror, reached into the cloth bundle and fished up a pair of scissors, glinting brightly silver in the noon light. A vivid imagination and an active mind are at times a burden; I had come up with approximately the thirtieth horrible thing that could be done to me with a pair of scissors by the time Oros said, with a smirk, "Why, your hair, of course."

The terror running rampant through the halls of my imagination came to a shuddering halt, and I went from fear to blinking befuddlement in the span of a few heartbeats. "My _what?_"

"Nico," and I swore that Oros's grimglass grin grew slightly more evil, "related to Trist that it appeared as if someone hacked your hair off with a sword, and he would not rest until he acquired approval to neaten it."

I couldn't help it; I stared and blinked again, and the redheaded Elyos bowed again, grinning ear to ear. Somewhat numb, I said to the pair of them almost automatically, "And the price for such a favor?"

Oros hesitated, then nodded to Trist, and the taller man yanked the cloth from the bundle to display its contents. Aside from a kit containing comb, razor and other such implements of grooming, there sat glowering in the shiny confines a squiggle of black iron, like a figure-eight with the lower half twisted aside. I knew them for what they were, with a sharp intake of breath, and colour rose to my face and fire to my eyes as I pinned Oros in place. "You dare."

His fine brows rose, but the smirk remained. "I can hardly risk having you hurt dear Trist, who went so far out of his way to assist you out of the kindness of his heart."

"_Kindness,_" I spat, furious, and began to rise, "is not always needed, nor is it welcome!"

"Ah," grinned the gyre, as though he expected this very such response, "but I have a proposal for you. If you allow Trist his good deed for the day, then you shall hear it."

"I am distinctly underwhelmed," I growled at him, shuffling on my knees further into my corner, my leg throbbing dimly from the movement. It was here that I noticed the redhead was glancing between the gyre and myself, his face almost crestfallen, until he fixed his turquoise gaze on Oros and let it sit. There was a faint thrill of aether, almost a pulse of it tingling on the tips of my fingers, and startled, I gasped. Oros's fine brows immediately rose to the vicinity of his hairline.

"Trist deigns to comment," said the gyre guardedly, watching me with those inklike eyes, so at-odds with his pale face, "that he will come back another day, perhaps when you are feeling better."

I hesitated. Curiosity tore at me, especially upon seeing the strange reactions of the Elyos pair; Trist, blinking at the gyre's suspicion, seemed utterly unaware that anything odd had occurred, while Oros himself stared at me with renewed wariness. I studied the black-eyed gyre for a long span of heartbeats, till the line of his shoulders changed and I knew he intended to take his leave; but I slid my pale gaze to Trist, and in mockery of a tame thing, held out my wrists for binding without a word. I had at last decided that if they were to kill me, they would have done it several days before this moment, and likely when I had been unconcious and thus helpless.

Or when I had attacked Terekai Nameless, for that matter. That the mage himself, as feared an Elyos Daeva as had ever lived, did not strike me down by his own hand spoke volumes as to someone's cultivation of me for their own ends.

Trist slid his turquoise eyes to Oros, who nodded, unhappy now for some unfathomable reason; perhaps it upset his neat little world that an Asmodian had chosen cooperation, and he expected some trick of me. His dextrous hands played lightly across the hilts of the weapons canted across his hips, and I watched them out of the corners of my eyes as Trist came forward, the twisted loop of blackness held daintily in one hand, as if a dead rat. The bundle of scissors and grooming tools was in the crook of his arm, near and tempting, but I made no grab for it - Oros's black eyes narrowed when he saw the opening, and I knew then that, keeper or no keeper, he would kill me where I stood (knelt?) if I threatened Trist.

Another thrill of aether across my fingers, and the black iron squiggle clicked open in Trist's long-fingered hand, simple as you please; with an artful flick he settled them over my wrists, and as soon as they fell and the ends joined, I felt the shading of my faculties into dusk as surely as exhaustion melted into my bones. The sensation is strange to describe to one who has never fallen prey to them. The very air seemed to darken around me, dulling all acuity I possessed, making my limbs leaden and my eyes heavy, as though I had walked the long march from Carcarron to Sanctum. Had I possessed magic on the level of Terekai or even my brother, that too would have been dampened to the point of suffocation, and a piece of me struggled like a wild animal trapped in the noose as it was smothered with quiet calm.

The cuffs had no proper name, at least none that I understood then or now, dark tools they are, only whispered of and only used in times of open war. Now was one of those times, and I suppose I should not have been surprised to see them employed in my shining prison. No, the thing that should have surprised me more than anything was their use against a mortal. Mind shackles are high overkill versus anything less than a Daeva, but then, my captors seemed never to do a thing in half shares.

His prisoner made somewhat docile, Oros relaxed and allowed Trist to lead me to the center of my cell, smack in the center of the veiled sun and held there while the lanky Elyos clipped and snipped about my ears. My thoughts were fuzzed over as if I were drunk, and I bore it without complaint and very little dignity, struggling to remain awake and to study what little I could see of my gaolers. Oros's white head had streamers of color about it whenever he moved, and I was fascinated by them for the length of my mental suppression, cooing and smiling dumbly at the pretty swirls of light he sparked with nearly every movement. Trist was swift forgotten, my hold of Asmoth made shaky as it had not been since I was a child, and Elyan words spoken over my head seemed at once both clear as crystal and incredibly obscure. Trist at times steadied my shoulder to keep the scissors from plunging through the tips of my ears, and it seemed like waking from a dream when he held a round palm-sized mirror afore my eyes, and I glanced myself for the first time in weeks.

When Raum died, I cut off my hair in mourning and repentance, leaving it lopsided and wild for the time entire that I was prisoner, both of Elyos and Asmodian. Now, under Trist's clever ministrations, it was sleek and smooth, if so short it was nearly a bob, with bangs made to curve across my forehead to dust my eyes. The strands are like raspberries or old blood, a color I had forgotten I possessed, where Trist's own were the bright scarlet of new rubies. My eyes are silver, a trait of my bloodline, arresting and accusing even through the tiny mirror, my pupils pinpricks in the bright sun that I could only barely detect in my current state. My cheeks were more hollow than I remembered, my eyes underscored by black shadows on dusky skin, but the proud tilt to my mouth still held true, and I saw echoes of dear Jareth in my features, the tracery we both inherited from our honored mother.

Seeing myself cleared my mind somewhat of the fog, and I remember asking, lead-tongued, for the removal of the shackles. The rainbow swirls around Oros's head darkened and lost their opalescence; then Trist leaned kindly over my shoulder, scarlet curls brushing my cheek with a scent of lavender, and with a finger and a touch of aether he sprung the hidden catch holding the shackles closed. As soon as he snatched them from me and retreated to the safety of the gyre's shadow, the light engulfed me, its veil lifted, and I was exposed to the sun's wrath, merciless and lava-hot. I cried out and twisted away into my corner, eyes stinging, head aching as my mind leapt from the slowed passage of time to sudden quickness. Once I could bear to open my eyes and lift my head from my cradling hands, I saw that Oros was laughing. I could have buried him with a glance then, if a look could have killed.

"Does my pain amuse you?" I shot at him, baring my teeth in an animalistic gesture, which likely did nothing for his opinion of Asmodians - but I no longer cared. I saw from the corner of my vision that Trist was staring disapprovingly at the gyre, and there was a thread of aether once more, an unheard signal between the pair of them. It occured that I had not yet heard Trist speak; nevertheless, the laughter stopped, and only a slightly malicious smile remained.

"Do you care to hear the answer?" Oros shifted his weight, black eyes tight, and then stepped closer, taking the shelter of his shadow from Trist and instead throwing it over me, shielding me from the sun's anger and instead taking it into himself. There was no spirit of protection in his dark eyes, however, as the light limned his shoulders and white hair in gold.

"No." I sat up, properly this time with my back to the white stone wall, and stretched my weary leg out in a feeble attempt to relax the muscles. The leg ached and throbbed, needles spiralling below and around the bone in a place I could never itch, and it made me impatient and moody. I glanced away from him. "I have acquiesced, and my hair has been cut, unlikely a request as it was. I've borne your damned shackles with as little resistance as I could muster. Now, what is this thrice-damned proposal you are so eager to present me?"

"It is known to my liege that you are unusually knowledgeable in the realm of story and song, for an Asmodian." He tilted his head, birdlike, for a moment the vision of the sun-wheeling gyre that his soul portrayed in his wings. I opened my mouth to belay the claim, but he continued without giving me room for breath. "I have a request from our High Chantress - she wishes for you to scribe and translate _The Lay of a Broken-Winged Sparrow,_ since you profess to know it well, and our own translations are less than adequate."

Of all things, this was the last I had expected from him, and I didn't have a ready comeback. My wits still somewhat scrambled from the ordeal of the mind shackles, I was made hurried to find mental purchase on the odd track our conversation had now taken. "Your liege seems rather strangely informed. Was it you who made such claim?"

"I report to my liege only what I am bid observe." It was a delicate piece of evasion, and I could not let it go.

"He asked you _observe_ me for this?" I arched an eyebrow, honestly puzzled. "Not a knack for geography to plumb, or Asmodian tactics in war, but _lore?_ Children's stories?" Oros almost looked offended, and opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off much as he had just done to me. "If you are going to spout some line of how I am a _guest_ here and no prisoner, you can save the trouble. I am kept in conditions that are known to be uncomfortable to my people, in a room bare of so much as a blanket, fed tasteless mush and daily subject to interrogation. If you wish to break me, I would hope you would do it more efficiently."

Oros's pale cheeks darkened to an outraged scarlet, and this time when I felt the line of aether across my skin it was a tinkling like chimes, a sprinkle of light, and I glanced to Trist to see that the redheaded Elyos had at least partly understood our conversation; he was braced against the wall, holding his own belly and laughing silently, bundle abandoned, eyes squeezed shut, heaving great racking breaths without sound. I realzed in that breath that the Daeva was mute, but he must have ways of commune with the others of his kind - and the aether, Aion's gift to the peoples of Atreia, had found him one. Once I knew what to look for, I drew upon the experiences of my youth, threadbare tutelage at the arts my mother and Jareth excelled at, and the line of aether became a shape, a faint breath of sound in the back of my brain. I concentrated as hard as I could upon resolving it into true noise, words, tones I could hear if not understand; Oros, seeing the source of my frowned eyebrows and narrowed gaze, turned anger quickly to alarm, and he stepped bodily between myself and Trist, breaking my line of sight and thus my focus, for the nonce. I lost the track of the aether-noise, and it slipped back into bare whispers across my fingers, a thing I could feel but not quite touch.

His cheeks were still flushed, but his words were icily level. "I was bid," said he, every syllable cut from crystal and his accent in my tongue thick with anger, "observe, and ask questions, and relay any unique knowledge you would display when provoked to my liege, to do with what he would. What he chose was inform the High Chantress, and her request I have in turn relayed to you. Do with it what you will; my lord believes that a condemned Asmodian enroute to the Barrow could hardly hold information pertinent to his campaign, else at Carcarron you would have been executed, and not damned."

My pride bridled at this out-of-hand discard of my worth, but I could hardly argue it; I had been Raum's guardian, his protector, but he had not been privy to the secrets of Carcarron's eternal war against the Elyos, and thus I had not been a confidante to be slain at a whim. There were laws, to protect a dead lord's soldiers. If it had been otherwise, if Raum had known a speck of his father's plans, there would have been no council, no trial, no exile to the Barrow at the base of the ruined Tower. There would only have been a hanging, or my blood bright on the flagstones before Avarren's throne, if only the law had provided escape for a father's vengeace for the death of a son.

But there was not. I had been protected, by virtue of Raum's ignorance. And now, here I was, a plaything for the Elyos, a caged bird made to beat her wings against the bars and long for a noble end.

I lowered my eyes from the gyre's gaze, my will suddenly defeated, unable to muster retort for the truth of his words. He waited for it, waited until it became clear that on this issue, I would not fight him; then he turned from me, revoking the right to his shadow, and I covered my face and felt as if I could weep, though I could not have voiced precisely why.

"The state of your surroundings is at my lord's will, and I will relay to him your concerns." He paused, and his voice lowered, deepend to something approaching a growl. "Is there an answer for the High Chantress's request?"

I looked up, hands shading my eyes, and saw that the sun still picked out shadows on his back, along the white planes at the nape of his neck, peeking out over the collar of his leathers. "In Pandaemonium, it is customary for the supplicant to plead a bargain in person."

He hesitated at that; I suppose he was deciding if it was truth or a convenient lie. "I will speak with the High Chantress," he said, hollowly, and then with a curt gesture he collected a snickering Trist, padded to the smooth door, and slipped through without another glance or word. The redheaded Daeva, at least, flicked his turquoise eyes to my face, made a little wave with one hand as he negligently snatched up the bundle of grooming tools, and then he was gone.

I sat in my corner and watched the door for a time, then when it seemed there would be no return for them, I crept over to the scissors, left shining on the smooth stone floor, and stared at them for long moments. My first thought was _They will be missed_; the moment Trist opened the bundle to inventory its content, their lack would be noted, and they would be come for.

An accident? Perhaps. A trap? More likely. They would come looking for them, and if I had them in my possession, or had hidden them somewhere (although where I would do so was something of a puzzle in that bare stone-walled room) would be as good as a conviction. I had decided that I wished to live, and so I would not give the Daevas an excuse for my death, not when it had been made so clear to me that aggression would be met in like kind. Instead, I bared my teeth at the scissors as I had at Oros, disdaining them, and returned to my corner-shelter to put my back toward the door and feign sleep. At best, the evening food-bearers would take them when they left, and I could not be accused in any mishaps that occurred while they were present.

Curled on my side there and warmed by the ambient sun, my leg throbbing and my pride hurt, feigned sleep became truth. My last thought before I allowed the relaxing heat and darkness of oblivion claim me was of the light limning a halo across Oros's shoulders, and the hostility in those black, black eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

I remember that I dreamed of fire, and my heart was tight in my chest and smoke acrid in my nostrils when I shook myself awake, trembling; I have had good reason in my young life to fear the flames, and as such they played hob in my consciousness, often featuring center-stage in my worst nightmares. This one I do not remember the substance of, save that it made me sit up violently in the effort to dispel myself of it - and unrealizing of where I was, not only wrenched my tormented leg, but nearly brained the peering face of a stranger that had gotten a breath too close.

Gasping, I struggled to put my back in my corner, one foot and both hands scrabbling at the flagstones in a futile effort to aid my melding with the walls. My automatic checklist took over in the face of pain; I yet had all my fingers and toes, the room was the same as it was when I had fallen asleep, and the scissors were gone. In their place was a young woman, perhaps slightly older than myself, and looking upon her was to know perfection. It is said that the Elyos wield their beauty as a weapon, as surely as any sword or spell. I never knew the truth of that until I saw Kit for the first time. The gossamer fall of her bright hair, gleaming like spun silver, fell in gentle, fluffy waves to frame her chiseled face in a shape rather like a bell, her electric blue eyes large and luminous in the center of it all. She was no bubblegum beauty like Nico, no petite plaything with less clothing than good sense - I was surprised to see that muscles were layered on her broad shoulders and likely at the perfect curve of her hips, her feet perfectly balanced as she pulled back in surprise from looming over me. She was short for an Elyos woman, but fearsome and powerful, a living _waelcyrge_ from Mau legends, and seeing her even attired in a simple white gown with a row of bells in each ear for jewelry, I feared her. If she had been Asmodian instead of a moonlight-skinned Elyos, I would have worshipped her. It is the innate reaction of a mortal upon being startled by a Daeva, or so I am told; but in those days, the number of Aion's chosen that had been in such close proximity to me were counted on one hand, and all of them had been very careful to make me aware of them, to give me time to judge them. This spectre had had no such luck.

I shoved myself yet further into my corner, terror thrilling my heartbeat, and she covered the Selene's Bow of her mouth with one slender, yet callused hand. "My most grievous apologies. Did I startle you?" Ah, even her voice was exquisite, a lilting soprano. I felt gangly and bulky in comparison.

"Yes," I said, automatically, and it came out a squeak. I seemed already inured to the shock of an Elyos with the knowledge of Asmoth, as I realized it a breath too late, and stared at the woman, placing her slight archaic accent and refined delivery at a century before my birth. "You did not teach the gyre his Asmoth." And the gyre (to the strangeness of my disappointment, although I chided myself for looking forward to sparring with him) was suspiciously absent, as were the pair of mortal lackeys that attended almost all of our audiences from the haven of the doorway, which was shut. I half-suspected that they, and any immortal companions Oros chose to accompany him, were there as his check and balance that he might not strangle me for my impertinence. That balance was gone now; I was alone in a locked cell with what was clearly a powerful Daeva, with no witnesses or benefactor. Things could go so very badly here, if I displeased her. I stilled myself as much as I could, as a rabbit is still in the grass, to hide from the hawk.

If she was aware of my throught processes, she gave no sign. Instead her hand came away from her mouth, to reveal the promise of a smile in the tugging at its corners. "No, I did not. He would not learn from me - he is very stubborn."

"Yes," I said again, more normally, and there was an awkward silence between the two of us; or at least, I felt it awkward, as she acted upon it as if it were a normal happening in the course of her day, to wake a nightmaring Asmodian and nearly earn a broken nose for the trouble.

"I suppose an introduction is in order," she smiled somewhat wryly, and in either hand she gathered her gown and made deep courtesy before me with electric eyes downcast, as one does before a sovereign, not a Daeva before a mortal. Her sense of balance was amazing, as she held the pose flawlessly throughout her entire short speech. "I am known as The Voice of Ten Thousand Chimes, High Chantress of the Furiae, Ketterine Delainne of House Delainne. I come in spirit of supplicacy, to request aid in a matter in which your knowledge surpasses mine."

The formal court address of aeons past, and the flowery title, made me stare at her for a heartbeat or three before I remembered my manners, and bowed deeply at the waist, seeing as I could not rise without either collapsing, or revealing my self-taught therapy method. I could not summon anger at her presumptuousness, no, not here, not now that she had abased herself in asking for the favor of my attention in the oldest way I know of. "I am known as Jaya Azhdeen, of no House." I had not given Oros my surname when he had asked for it, but I supposed it could do no harm; it was a common thing in the lands surrounding Carcarron, and a name that had no connection to my lauded mother, which was precisely why it had been selected. "I receive you in spirit of hospitality, to give ear to your petition." I paused. "I would thank you for it if we would dispense with the formalities, High Chantress. My memory for court manners is somewhat rusty."

She smiled at me when she rose from the courtesy, and there at last was a chink in the glamour of her appearance - the smile was crooked, and I felt less in the presence of a true goddess and more in that of a Daeva. "As is mine; they have gone unused far too long for habit. I am informally known as Kit Brightwing, and you may address me as such, if you like. My formal names are a bit of a mouthful."

"You are the peregrine," I said before my mind could catch up with my mouth, and Kit nodded; as she seemed unruffled by my casual address, and I did not recognize the use-name for any fairytale figure offhand, I continued, wanting to search for the inevitable boundaries set upon my rogue tongue. "Oros told me of your request. I cannot accede."

"May I know the reason?" she inquired with the kind of stolid politeness that said that she would not be easily dissuaded, nor annoyed into going away, as Oros had sometimes been. I changed tack.

"May I know why you were watching me sleep?" I said, and stuck my chin up and out. She blinked once, then said, "I was told you were muttering foul things in your sleep, and your guards asked me to assure them that you were not fevered, nor possessed by fell Asmodian magicks, either of which would require intervention from Kiert."

"How _sweet_ of them," I growled, and pulled my injured leg up tight to me, looping my arms around the knee. "Where is Oros?"

"Attendant on his lord. It is the evening meal at court." Knowledge of the time made it easier to feel oriented, and I noted with some interest that as she spoke of the lord, Kit grew quieter, her angel's voice somewhat more tense, and it was reflected in the line of her shoulders. I pushed her, of course. Always poking my nose into things that I shouldn't.

"And who is this 'lord' that Oros loves so dearly?" I purred, my voice dripping with sarcasm, outright attempting to provoke her. "Some minor noble, perhaps? A powdered dandy who must needs an Assassin playing Templar at his right hand while he gorges himself?"

One silver brow arched; I'd hit a nerve. "Trist and Kiert were eminently correct, I see. You have little patience in you."

"I have little patience for the gaolers who would come and rattle the bars of my cage, yes," I shot back, silken manner gone. "If you would leave me to rot, then do so. If you would break me to your will, then do so. This gentling will cultivate only contempt for you and your kind."

"You looked for him," she noted, fascinated, and I was too slow with the demurral, surprised that I had been caught out. "When you saw me, you looked for him. Are you so desperate for a familiar face in this foreign land?"

"Why? Are there other Asmodian prisoners held here, _guests_ pursuant to House Helios's _goodwill?_" I said, too quickly and impotent of tone, and she knew she had me where I had had her a moment before; she did not answer, and I knew that the Elyos did not make a habit of kidnapping Asmodians, when they were so much less dangerous dead and cold. We stared at each other across the canyon of our mutual suspicions, and then at last she sighed and shook out the gentle wave of her hair, making the tiny bells in her ears chime madly, a wedding march for flea-sized demons. "Let us move to a more neutral subject."

"The Lay," I said sourly, and shifted in my corner so that I could rub the side of my knee with the cool fob at the end of my jade coraline. In the upper parts of my injury, at the tail end of the gap in my flesh, skin and muscle were beginning to knit back together, and the entire side of my knee had become purple with bruises. It hurt to press on it, but it itched terribly also, and to scratch it even through the bandage was a pain I wished to forgo. "I cannot help you. It is an ill-luck song; to give it to you in a more pure form than that which you already have would be handing your army another weapon to be used against my people."

"I am not interested in the melody," said she, and my skeptical gaze prompted a Look and a continuation. "By all accounts the Lay is as bad of luck to its own wielders as to its opponents, if not worse. I am a powerful Chantress, but I shall not be accused of hubris. 'What Aion hath cursed to rebellion, shall yet remain unharnessed by hands immortal; even a Daeva may not tame the storm,'" she said, and the quote from _The Dynasty of Storms_ resonated in my lonely heart. Oros must have told her the secret to opening my mouth, if not my mind. The tale is Asmodian, and can be found in any library there for any curious, but it is known somewhat in Elysea as well - in great part due to Kit's work, to scribe and remeter the stories of my people for those of the Elyos who would listen.

I could not help it; the curiosity that led me to allow myself to be shackled also prompted me to ask her, "Then, what precisely is it you wish of me?"

"The Lay is a Carcarrese ballad," she said, and her brows drew down and together somewhat to loan strength to her mild frustration. "There are many turns of phrase that I am unfamiliar with, and idioms that I am certain would make perfect sense to one born of Asmodae. The brogue is also quite interesting, but Asmoth is difficult enough to translate without the added confusion of 'oryss' instead of 'arres', or 'tasxic' over 'dashik'. I highly doubt that Arkain Carcarron rode to Rivenstone on the back of a swarthy peasant, or that Mishuvel wore a belt of chicken eggs at the battle on the Crown of Nails." She threw up her hands at the whole messy business, and I found that I could not suppress a smile.

"And I suppose you have some carrot to dangle, should I initially decline such a request?"

"I am empowered to vastly improve your circumstances, contingent upon your cooperation," said she, her electric blue eyes sliding to one side, folding her arms to cradle her ample chest. Her tone was unchanged, casual and light, but her body language had suddenly began writing in small, cramped letters. She was uncomfortable in this, attempting to bribe me with the thought of a more gilded cage in which to sit and be poked at. _Why is that?_ I wondered, before it became clear to me all at once, and I thought myself a fool for not spotting it before. _This coercion was not **her** idea._

I felt my eyes narrow, and needs must ask what seems from the outside an obvious question, but only too often in cautionary fables, one's situation is considered to be _improved_ by dire injury or death. "Define 'improve'."

She flushed, to my vague amusement, and her gaze sought the marble tile, the white walls, the skylight, anything but my accusing face. "We have procured an eaved room with one side window and a reasonable amount of furnishings, such as it is believed can be allowed without danger to the guard. There is a proper necessary, as well as a bed, with fresh linens."

"Oh? Don't the legends say that my people hang from the rafters, like bats?" It was an idle barb, truthfully, for I was being tempted more and more to complacency by these offerings. The thought of a true necessary, not simply a bucket left in a corner between mealtimes, heartened me. Kit rolled her eyes, returning her oh-so-blue gaze to mine. "The legends also say that Kaithiel Lady of Illusion spits fire from her eyes and lightning from her...." She coughed to hide a smile. "Ah, well, I'm sure you know the tale."

I did, and at the thought of _that_ rather bawdy poem, I had to work to maintain my sober mein. "Is this Oros's doing, these strings-attached offerings?"

"Lord Ourobouros," Kit said tartly, tilting her head to make the bells in her ears chime, "was abjectly against both my proposal and such extortion of your knowledge." She snorted, somewhat in amusement and somewhat in derision. "I suppose he has taken issue with anyone other than himself dangling carrots, as you put it."

The smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, irresistible now, and I could not deny that I agreed wholeheartedly. He seemed exactly the type. "Am I so dangerous, then? A mortal, crippled Asmodian, trapped in Elysea and surrounded by Daevas?"

She flashed her crooked smirk once more. "Oros seems to believe so. But enough of that; will you accede?"

I had gotten the germination of an idea, however, and faced with the so-called 'good cop', I intended to take full advantage of her generosity for as long as I had access to it. I drew myself up as much as I could while prone on the floor, set my jaw, and fixed her with that stare that made my silver eyes hard as diamonds. I should know; I practiced it in the mirror, as a youth. Even a warrior may have her vanities. "I will accede on the condition that so long as I deign to aid you in your translation, you will teach me Elyan, that I might translate _properly._" Kit stared at me for long moments, clearly taken aback; when I made no further comment, she straightened her back and lifted a hand to tap her lower lip with a delicate finger.

"I believe that can be arranged," she said, cautiously. "I needs must seek permission, but there is little that I must beg of my lord, and therefore very little at all that he must deny me." She let her arms fall and tilted her head the other way, this time smiling broadly. "I understand you have been a thorn in Oros's side for, oh, almost a week now, and confined to this room for all this time. Nico and I had the thought occur to us - would you like a bath?"

"I would," said I, before my brain could moderate my mouth. The thought of warm water, of soap, of smelling like anything other than sweat, blood and fear - well, I am not very feminine for all that I am female, but cleanliness is a habit ground into me from birth. The walk there would not be pleasant, however, and I remembered of a sudden that Kit could not know that I could walk at all; I feigned reluctant weakness then, drawing my brows together with a sullen, quiet, "I've no idea how I will get to it, however, given my leg."

Kit waved her hand dismissively, unconcerned with this insignificant detail. "If you have no objections, we shall depart from this dreary cell immediately." She turned lightly on the ball of one foot and reached to touch the white door at her back, and I felt a flutter of aether like the opening note of a song, clear and high and unwavering. I suppose now that she must have sealed that portal with aether, warded it against - something; my escape, or eavesdroppers, perhaps. In any case, I was left blinking in dull surprise as Kit waved in a pair of Elyos guards, one of my mortal retinue and almost impossible to tell apart. They bowed in unison, a sort of snide undertone to their motions, and I glared at them through the haughty mask I made of my face and let them see that their mockery did not rile me. Kit spoke briefly to them in her native tongue, her sweet soprano as clear as her magic had been, and retrieved from a figure in the doorway a white cloth, folded many times over. Her face was unmistakably apologetic. "I must bind your eyes. It is evening-tide here, but I fear that even the setting Elyos sun may be a touch too bright for an Asmodian."

Not to mention it was a handy way to prevent me from seeing the inner layout of Sanctum, I thought glumly, but I waved her on, impatient. She stooped and secured the cloth about my eyes, hooding me like a falconer does a hawk, quickly and without wasted motion to invite snapping jaws; I was readjusting to a world without sight when I felt strong hands, most ardently _not_ Kit's, close about either of my elbows and lift me up. I was not expecting to be touched, and I jerked away and fought them fleetingly, stumbling back against the white stone walls and stepping on my injured knee in precisely the wrong way. I could have suffered through it, but to do so would have been to broadcast to the Elyos that my injury was not so bad as Kiert had perceived, and instead I gave a sharp cry and folded my leg beneath me. One of the guardsmen caught me before I hit the floor, firm but not searching as I might have expected, and with some difficulty the pair of them strung me up between them, one arm over either of their broad shoulders, my feet dangling above the floor, leg throbbing beneath the bandages.

"Bastards! Unhand me!" I kicked out with my good leg and caught one of them sharply in the knee, and though he cursed in Elyan with tones fit to make a battalion commander blush, he did not drop me as I had hoped. It seemed this was to be my method of transportation, confirmed when my escorts began to walk, carrying me between them, and I felt the breeze of our movements on my face.

"I suppose I should have warned you," said Kit's disembodied voice, contrite, and I could practically hear her wincing.

"You're bloody right you should have!" I snarled in her general direction, struggling more for effect now than in truth, but at least it made the guards focus on keeping me upright rather than on anything else they might have tried.

"They will mind their manners, and their hands, that I assure you," said Kit, almost meekly. I heard light feet ascending a staircase, followed by heavier tromping, and my forward motion began to climb upward in choppy little jerks.

"They had better," I growled impotently, like a pouting child, more aware in that moment of how weak I was than in all my time previous in captivity. fuming in silence, I dangled there until I felt warmth on my cheeks and arms, saw a light that was blinding even through the cloth on my eyes. The scent of water was so powerful that it forced me to thirst, made me wish I could throw myself at the edge and dunk my entire head in its coolness; the noise of wind was like running into a wall, until I detected in it traces of song, snatches of conversations, bellows and whispers and offers of trade, all in a melodic language that if I focused just hard enough would come into clarity and understanding -

- and then we entered the shelter of a building, and the sun's heat and water's scent and the sounds of the city below Sanctum's ramparts receded, and I felt lessened somewhat by the loss. "Almost there," said Kit, annoyingly cheerful.

I kept silent and still, letting my anger simmer. It was not in me to be happy to go to my prison, no matter how lovely the bars.


	7. Chapter 7

When the blindfold was at last removed from my eyes and my mismatched feet set upon solid ground, it was not into brightness as I had expected; the bathing chamber of my new cage was blessedly windowless, a humid white-tiled room with a deep water-filled gouge carved from the floor and dim mage-candles merrily burning in sconce-cages. Once more set upright, I reached with a hand. hopped to the side and found the helpful wall to lean against. The guardsmen bowed as one, their presence crowding the little room, and retreated to stand at a white-painted wood doorway, the most likely entrance to the new prisoner quarters.

Kit gestured grandly, beaming, and said, "What do you think?"

I grunted something noncommittal, but I could smell the water and soap, feel its warmth even from where I stood. It occurred to me that this had been prepared ahead of time, for the water to remain hot even after our jog through Sanctum's baileys, and I looked at the Chantress sidelong, recalculating my initial stock of her. She did not notice, of course, and bustled to the doorway to shoo the male guards from the entrance with brisk Elyan words. They went reluctantly, though I think it was not from a desire to see my naked shape.

When they were gone, Kit returned to my side and smiled. "May I see your leg?"

I drew back from her somewhat, huddled and wary against the wall. "Why?"

"There is a cantrip I know, that will keep your bandages from getting wet," she smiled, somewhat sheepish. "Come, it will take only a moment, and then you can slough off all that dirt you've been harboring."

I was inclined to resist, of course, but oh, the water was _right there,_ and once I had begun to adjust to the dark I could see the slaver of liquid soap, the soft loofah, the little glass bottle of perfumed oil, the fluffy linens that rested invitingly at the tub's edge. If it had been a feast, my mouth would have been an ocean. I did my best to feign disinterest, however, sighing heavily, rolling my eyes and lifting my bum leg for her inspection. She tugged up the pants hem with a careful, practiced hand, and I could not help but watch in fascination as she wrote a symbol in the air above my bandages, not quite visible, merely a depression where the light bent in a strange way. I tilted my head this way and that, attempting to read it, and Kit glanced up and was startled into delighted laughter. "You can see it?"

Seeing no reason to deny it, I shrugged. "A little. Is it ready?" She nodded, and turned around to pace to the door, giving me privacy to undress. I was a bit surprised to see her turn her back to me so readily, to wait unknowing what I might do, but I supposed she had very little to fear from me; what could I have done? Picking up the bottle of oil and braining her was always an option, but I was uncertain that a Daeva could be rendered helpless so easily, and there was the matter of my leg, and the two guards at the door. Limping threateningly at them all was not the choicest course of action for a potential escapee.

Thus, with another heavy sigh, I began the process of undressing. The tunic came off easily enough, though to remain upright I had to contort my upper body in ways I disliked thinking about, and seeing no place set aside for the filthy clothing, let it drop to the floor. The pants were a bit more difficult, and in the end I pressed my back to the wall, slid to the floor that my bandaged calf needn't take my weight, and slithered out of the cloth like a snake shedding skin. These I kicked rather viciously away, glaring at them as they skirled across the tile floor, and I hoped rather petulantly that Kit would have them burned. The undergarments provided me by Carcarron's grace followed into the ragpile, my coraline tied loosely round my neck, and from there I pulled myself along the tile until I could flop into the water, no longer patient enough for grace.

I made a bit of a splash, the hot water lapping up the sides of the deep pool, but the linens remained untouched; that was all I could ask for, and my concern for keeping them dry quickly dwindled, floating in that Elyos-sized tub. I am considered tall for an Asmodian female, but the Elyos grow as sunflowers do, nurtured by the light of Aion's smile. There was just enough room that I could float weightless, without touching the sides or bottom, close my eyes and feel the heat seeping into my bones, the dirt beginning to loosen from where it was caked on my body and in my hair.

Sound of padded footsteps, the rustle of cloth. "Does it meet your expectations?" I reopened my eyes to see Kit sitting ladylike at the edge of the tub, smiling impishly. I nodded. "The cantrip holds?" she asked, and I peeked at my leg, to see the rather interesting sight of the bandages surrounded by a thin coat of bubbles, shimmering slightly in the dimness. "It does," I said, and with a slight sigh I touched bottom with my good foot, anchored myself, and reached for the slaver of soap and its accompanying loofah. The latter was dipped in the water and then engulfed in soap; I set about with a will to scrub myself clean, scraping my skin raw and my hair till it squeaked. I am sure the water was grey and filthy when I had finished my first set of ablutions, but I continued to wash myself anyway, momentarily obsessed with the thought of cleansing my body of every trace of dust and sweat. "That is a rather interesting charm to learn," I noted, to fill the silence left by Kit's watching me bathe. It had a (thankfully) studious air, of an artist watching a model pose, but still left me somewhat ill at my ease.

Kit laced her hands in her lap and smiled, leaning like a willow against the tiled wall at the tub's edge. "I broke my arm when I was very young," said she, her electric eyes crinkling at the corners, "and it drove me up the ramparts that I could not bathe without endangering the bandages. I had yet some speck of talent then, however, and thus Terekai crafted me the cantrip." I went silent and still in the bathwater, and Kit's delicate eyebrows arched. "Is there something wrong?"

"Terekai killed my mother," I said, flat and hard, and in that moment I didn't care that I may have injured Kit's feelings; I skittered my eyes to the water and lifted the loofah again, scrubbing with renewed fury and vigor. "I was nine."

From the corner of my gaze, I saw Kit's hands flutter to cover her mouth in mortification. "My deepest apologies."

"You'll understand if I do not wish him spoken of." An awkward silence fell between us, and though I did not glance at her face, I could practically hear the clockwork of Kit's mind as it searched for a different tack to take through these suddenly rough waters. "Your mother," said she, after a moment's consideration, "was she a soldier?"

_Careful, Jaya._ "She was." I dropped the loofah, ducked under the surface of the water, tilted my head to sleek my hair back, and resurfaced. Soap bubbles clung to my arms and shoulders, draping like a fur stole. Kit, showing a grasp for tact, did not press further on that subject; and honestly, the less said on my mother, the better, for my own safety and that of her memory. "And your father?" she asked instead, and I shrugged eloquently, seeing for the first time the scar tissue at my shoulder flex and shine in the light of the mage-candles. The wound had healed cleanly, at least, and with my leg to bother me, my shoulder did not pain me.

"I never met him," I said, truthfully. In fact, I was unaware that I had ever had one to begin with, but the circumstances of my and Jareth's birth were not considered unusual, given our mother's own. At last I deigned to look her in the eye once more, and she was attentive but not pressing, curious but respectful. "And yours?"

She flashed her crooked smile and began to absently smooth the folds of her gown. "My parents were Daevas both, the last pure blooded children of House Delainne. Both casualties of the war, one destroyed, the other Faded when he lost his will to continue fighting."

"You hardly seem as if you mourn them," I said, intrigued but not yet daring a smile, and she made a shrug to mimic my own, the gesture somehow made more graceful on her broad-shouldered frame. "I knew neither of them very well, and this was many years ago, in any case. I was raised by a mortal nanny, here in Sanctum's heart." Her voice grew thick with irony. "The bloodline was too precious to be risked."

_The bloodline must be preserved,_ growled Avarran Carcarron in my memory, and I made a noncommittal sound and plucked up the loofah to wash my uninjured leg, anything to avoid Kit's face, saying very quietly, "The war makes orphans of us all." She did not answer me immediately, but instead paused a moment before letting out a breathless chuckle. "I suppose you're right. Is that from some saga I have yet to read?"

I shook my head, and wrung out the loofah, a vicious flick of the wrists. "Merely a common-held truth, in the province I was born to."

"Is Carcarron as lovely as the ballads make it?" she asked me, perching her chin upon a palm while I scrubbed. I couldn't help the smile, but two thoughts warred for space at the tip of my tongue: _Ask your countrymen that destroyed Rivenstone_ in the specific, and lying about the terrain with as much fluence and sincerity as I could muster in the general. "That needs must depend upon what one defines as lovely."

"Well, in the Lay, not much is said of the land excepting that both keeps are set high upon a spiked tor, from which the highest tier of ramparts at Rivenstone took name - the Crown of Nails." She visibly grew more animated as she spoke, forsaking her chin-perch for wild gestures and an enthused tone, her electric eyes alight. "There is a passage that mentions, very briefly, that Carcarron is 'darkling vert' and 'cradled by a river twined like a lover round the road', but nothing else is said."

"I suppose that is because in the norm, those who know of the Lay have already _seen_ Carcarron, or regions like it," I pointed out, and she nodded acquiescence with a playful grin.

"That does not stem my scholar's need to know," she laughed, "but I have always enjoyed a puzzle, and to have you tell me of it would ruin all my fun." She stood as I reached for the bottle of oil, traditionally the finishing touch in bathing in Asmodae, apparently a trait shared between our peoples. "I shall find you a gown, if you'll give me but a moment. Will you need aid leaving the water?"

"Most likely," and though it was the truth, it made my cheeks burn. I turned away to fiddle with the bottle's stopper, and Kit, mercifully, left me for a moment to my own devices. The oil was cool despite the warmth of the bathing chamber, and I slathered it everywhere that I could comfortably reach, in my hair, across my shoulders, down my arms and good leg. It clung with a wet shine to my dark skin, resisting the water and soap's efforts to cleanse it, and it was with a reluctant sigh that I set the bottle of it aside and attempted the lip of the tub. My first effort ended with my hand skidding across tile and a mouthful of soap as I slipped beneath the surface, but I spat it out and persevered, refusing defeat. When Kit had returned with a folded garment, I had dragged my upper half from the water and lay panting against the tile, claws digging into the stone, soap riming the floor and splashed water lapping at the lowest in the pile of fluffy linens. She clicked her tongue at me, set the garment aside, and stooped, taking me by the shoulders; I was prepared for it this time, however, and locked my palms to her elbows as she hauled me bodily from the water to set me upon my good foot, and kept a hand upon my left shoulder to balance me as she plucked dry linens from their neat pile upon the floor.

"May I ask you something rather personal?" she said, as she offered me the towels, and I began to scrub anew, this time to dry myself.

"That depends upon the question," said I, perhaps too cautiously, but in that moment I was only too aware of her surprising strength, and newly reminded that what stood beside me was a Daeva, and an Elyos at that.

"How did you get this?" and she tapped the pink scar at my shoulder with her delicate thumb, not ungently; her face was merely curious, with no trace of the kind of subtle cunning I had come to expect from her peer Oros, but I suspected it all the same. "A sword that pinned me to a wall." It was almost curt; I did not like to return to that memory.

"Through and through?" Her electric eyes widened, visibly shocked. "You should have lost entirely the use of your arm!"

"I was lucky, I suppose," I shrugged, and I felt the skin of the scar pull somewhat, thudding dully deep in the muscle below. Kit nodded, gaping somewhat, and her voice of a sudden turned wistful. "Or in the care of an exceptional healer. I could only wish for such skill."

"Is Kiert Fireheart's area of expertise so fascinating, then?" I let the towels drop one by one to the floor as they became too wet for my use; the bandages at least seemed dry as I could have asked, and the heat had temporarily soothed the pain from my muscles. Kit laughed, a fluting, birdlike sound this time, and said, "Compared to the histories of both cultures? Never. But I might like a touch more ability in that arena. There is only so much a Chantress can do in battle, and bolstering morale does not always save lives." She said it lightly, but it fell like a stone between us. I let the last towel join its brethren on the floor after a brisk rub of my hair, and she handed me a plain white gown not unlike her own, that fell in silken waves past my hips once I had struggled into it. "Would you like to see your room?"

I nodded; together, with me limping-hopping, her arm to steady me, and a helpful wall for balance, we gracelessly exited the bathing chamber, passed the guards watching sullenly from the door, and Kit conducted me to a plush divan upon which to rest my weary limbs. My newest cell was roughly three times the size of the white stone room in which I had previously been detained, with tapestried walls and a handful of mage-candles, a small closet (it later turned out to be the Elyos version of a necessary; they kept such facilities separate from bathing spaces) and a deep, low bed, almost a nest from all the pillows and sumptuous textiles and furs thrown across it. These things were welcome, but it was the last piece of furniture that commanded my attention: a secretary-style desk, with two stools tucked beneath, and numerous shelves and cubbies in place of drawers, some of them filled with books and scrolls, others yet empty. It was to this desk that Kit went, running her slender fingers along the honey-coloured wood of the desk's work surface, and from one cubby she withdrew a slim volume, hand-bound in red leather. "I have taken the liberty of stuffing your desk myself, with some selections from my personal library. This, in particular, is quite precious to me." She laid it almost reverently upon the desk then, and came to sit with me on the divan. "I shall have some rugs brought to you - this stone floor is not conducive to healing, and I could not secure you a room with a fireplace. There is a window there," and when she pointed I could see its outline, just barely beneath its thick curtain, "but Oros told me that you are sensitive to bright light, and I thought it best to cover it. The candles may be extinguished with a word."

Skeptical, I asked for a demonstration, and with a sheepish smile she cleared her throat and addressed the nearest sconce: "_Koimet,_" which she then noted was a word meaning 'to sleep', and the white-flamed candles immediately winked out, leaving us in a blackness so thorough that I could see the outlines of the guards shifting uneasily at the door. "To relight them, it is 'to wake', _sypnet_," and the candles obediently kindled themselves back to life.

"Fascinating," I said, and meant it. Candles must be manually lit and extinguished in my experience, and this seemed purest frivolous luxury, but I could not bring myself to care. It would be difficult enough, limping across the room to that desk in mornings.

"Is there anything else you require?" said Kit, not unkindly, and she rose in a flurry of fabric and the chime of her earrings. "Dinner, perhaps?"

"Dinner," I nodded, and she smiled sweetly.

"I will have it delivered shortly. That pair," and she thumbed at the near-identical mortal guards, who suddenly straightened to attention, "I will station outside your door. Their names are Sathas and Kryson." They bowed, one slightly after the other, though I still could not divine them from any other uniformed guard in Sanctum; I wished that I would not have enough time here for practice, but I knew that was a wish that would never be granted. "If there is anything you should need, have them send for me, and I will come at once."

"Thank you," I said, and it made her smile again. As she turned on a heel to leave, however, I stopped her with her name, and she paused to look at me curiously. "Can you tell me what something means, before you go?"

"Have the guards been abusing you?" Her eyebrows rose, and I could not help but smile. "I will have talk with their commander."

"No, nothing so banal. But it has been bothering me somewhat, and if you know the words, I would like to have them." She smiled at me then, bright and delighted, as though she existed only to help me. "Out with it, then!"

"_Miset mou kai zeira_," I said, and she blinked, startled. "What do they mean? Is something wrong?"

"Ah, no," she said, blinking a few more times in rapid succession. "Who said that to you?"

"Oros," and she nodded, as if it of a sudden made sense, which perhaps it did.

"You will not like it," she warned me, and I shrugged again, unconcerned, which made her sigh and throw up her hands in a mockery of frustration. "Ah, as you like then. The words mean, 'Hate me and live'." I stopped dead as soon as she said it, as though a bolt had struck my heart, and I felt my face first go pale and then flushed and then pale again. That bastard. That manipulative little _snake_ -

"Thank you, Kit," I forced myself to say, willing my voice to evenness, and it was her turn to ask me if there was something amiss. "No, I am fine. You will visit tomorrow?"

"I will," she promised, but her face was worried, the seabird's arch of her brows knit in concern. "You _will_ send for me if I am needed?"

"I will," echoed I, schooling my features and voice into aloof distance and folding my hands, ladylike, in my lap. "Good night, Kit."

"Good night, Jaya," she said, and with her face still scrunched in concern, she swept out of the chamber, the guards parting for her to pass, exiting themselves, and then barring the door behind them. I waited till a count of ten, my eyes burning holes in the materials of the door, before I threw myself to my feet and swiped and hissed at the air. _Oros!_ He had known what he was doing the entire time! Provoking me with questions and prying into matters that he had no business in, intermingling kindness and fury with a potent mixture that was just enough to keep me coming back to rile his temper with every word I spoke. He had known, somehow, that unless I found strength in hatred, and an object upon which to focus that anger, I would waste away in this cage and the knowledge I held would be lost -

Where Kit sought to gentle me with kindness, Oros had tried to tame me with my own temper.

The worst part was realizing how close he had come to success.

I snarled and growled and threw quite a spectacular tantrum, standing there in that spacious, cold room, and when my leg gave out beneath me and I struck myself rather painfully on that bare stone floor, I said grumpily to the ceiling, "I deserved that." I lay there a while on the cool flagstones, until I was certain that my guards were not about to storm the door, pressing my bandages against the stone and contemplating what I would do with this new revelation. I had entered into a bargain with Kit, in good faith if not exact honesty, and should her lord approve my desire to learn Elyan, I had no honorable or graceful exit from such. As an oathbreaker, I was considered a dishonored creature; as a cripple, I no longer possessed grace. Still, I hesitated to throw Kit's aid back at her, like an unworthy fish. If I ever wished to escape from Sanctum, I would need skill in the language, the ability to read signs upon the road, knowledge of the customs. And a thing I had learned as a child was that if one was quiet and still and allowed those around you to forget your presence, others would do exactly that; if they thought I could not understand their speech, so much the better. Perhaps I would learn something of worth, something to lay at Avarran Carcarron's feet with which to redeem myself, or another lord, should he choose to bar me from him.

Oros, however.... Oros was another matter entirely, and I burned with new and impotent fury, wanting to take the gyre by the neck and shake him until his black eyes rolled in their sockets. But I was not stupid, and I had had a temper my whole life; I knew that I could not contemplate nor exact my revenge while wrath so clouded my thoughts, and resolved to think upon it when calmed.

When I chose to rise, though my anger was not quite dissipated - quite the opposite, in fact - I eventually pulled myself up using the divan and its cushions, cursing Oros and his questionable heritage the whole way. I rested a moment there, then dragged myself and my unresponsive, now inflamed limb to the desk, where I picked up the volume Kit had earlier chosen and sank to the floor to examine it further, seeking solace for my temper in the book.

The red leather cover was unadorned, no title burned into it to mark the folio, but remembering at the last second that this volume was precious to Kit, I did not tear it open as I might have, and was rather more gentle with it. I was very glad of it in my next breath, for what I saw there astonished me. The preface was blocked in an unfamiliar style, but the rest of the thing was handwritten, with lovely, almost calligraphic words in faded sepia ink, the letters with distinctive looping tails and serif-like flourishes. There was a generous margin to either side of the body of text, and notes had been scrawled in these spaces, little homey things that were not quite as beautiful to look at as the formal writing, but they held touches of humour, self-deprecations, things that made me hear the author's voice and see her face as clearly as if she sat before me, reciting them. I would have recognized it if I had been blind, deaf and drunk, and there was no child of Carcarron that could not have said the same.

This unassuming red volume was an annotated, very early copy of The Lay, in Mishuvel the Pale's own hand, and my fingers shook like leaves upon its hallowed pages.

Where had Kit found this? It was priceless in all parts of Asmodae, not merely Carcarron, and it seemed a blasphemy for it to be in the personal collection of an Elyos Daeva; my mind raced through all the circumstances upon which the book could have found its way to Elysea, and could come up with very few plausible scenarios. There must have been a theft, I decided with a pounding heart, a theft of this precious folio either from a collector like Kit, or from Asphel Lord of Darkness's own library. The number of handmade editions of the Lay could be counted on one hand. No doubt that one had conveniently gone missing, either recently or so far in the past that there lived few who remembered the lack of it -

I understood now why Kit handled it with such reverence, as if it were a religious artifact. For many of my people, it was. I had to lay it in my lap and lace my fingers together in an attempt to quell the tremor in my hands, the crazed thudding of my heart.

What dual-edged gifts the Elyos lay before me. What ulterior motives they had for every action, even deliberate cruelties.

I set the volume carefully on the floor, drew my knees to my chest, and stared at that scarlet cover for a long, long time, as if it were a snake, ready to bite.


	8. Chapter 8

I was going mad by inches, a prisoner of my own making.

Every day was the same. When the sun's bright flare could no longer be hidden even by my thick curtain in the morning, I rose and dressed, then languished on the divan until Sathas (I was learning to differentiate my guards from one another, much to my chagrin) escorted Kiert Fireheart into my quarters, a tray of food in one hand and rolls of bandages in the other. The tray set aside, my leg was first unwrapped, rubbed with a fragrant herbal salve to keep the scar tissue pliant, and then bound once more. Only then would I be allowed to eat, and though the food was yet simple fare - honeyed bread, tepid soup with rice - I did not miss in the slightest the tasteless mush of my previous subsistence. Kiert would sit there and wait, watching me eat, until I had cleaned my plate. Though I had tried to clear him off, in the beginning I had not nearly enough knowledge of Elyan to tell him that it was positively _creepy_ that he hung on every bite I took of the bread, and instead I needs must learn to ignore him, allowing both of us to pretend that this wasn't a rather uncomfortable and needless business. When I had eaten everything set before me, Kiert would rise and take the dishes with him, leaving me to my own devices until mid-morning.

Kryson would follow Kit into my quarters as far as the divan before assuming his normal post at the door; Kit, enthused and very clearly a 'morning person', usually had an armful of scrolls and papers for us to pore over, the day's chosen section of the Lay. There would be a spirited discussion of all the meanings, double entendres, linguistic puns and the rhyme and meter of the passage, usually with an explanation on my part of certain Asmoth or Carcarrese idioms and grammatical quirks, while Kit scribbled furious notes on the many pieces of foolscap scattered across the desk and around the divan. In the end we came to an accord in that there should be two translations - one to preserve the meter and spirit of the thing, for it would not do to eviscerate such lovely work with our clumsy attempts at perfection, and another, more precise translation for the literal meaning. Lunch would come and go during these extended, friendly arguments, sprinkled with lessons in Elyan; then at last, afternoon bells would ring, and Kit would gather her things reluctantly, usually leaving me with some bit of scribbling to ponder, before departing in preparation of evening court.

And then I would sit and wait, or pace the length and breadth of my room to strengthen my aching leg, attempting to suppress the urge to smother myself with a pillow out of sheer boredom.

Nico the Butcher was the bearer of my evening meal, flirting avidly with both my guards and utterly belying her vicious deed-name. As I learned more words of Elyan and began to grasp its grammar, she turned her mismatched eyes to me as well, teaching me the simple, homely sentences of common conversation that were not present in such an epic work as the Lay. Second to Kit, she became one of my better acquaintances during this phase of my captivity, and with her help (and the reluctant aid of my guards) my speech grew more fluid every day, and my accent less impeding. By the end of the second week, we were fumbling through entire conversations; at the end of the fourth, I could communicate with any of my visitors without stuttering my grammar or allowing my yet-slight Carcarrese brogue to interfere. My leg I exercised as religiously as my tongue, walking every day in the times when I was alone, but soon I came to the awful realization that Kiert had been right. I would never again walk without a limp; some muscle on the outside of my calf had been severed, and I had to work to prevent my foot from folding up underneath me with every step. The pain of it lessened as time passed, but it never truly ended, merely migrating inward to my bones.

One day in Sanctum, it began to rain, a gossamer trickle that started as a low susurrus and ended as a city-wide curtain of water, rain sheeting down to obscure the blazing fire from Aion's smile. My eyes could accept what little light remained, and so I opened my curtain and stared out into the bright greyness of the world. With the rain trailing down the bars of my window - no glass did it bear; only metal crosses to section it, grey forbidding things sunk deep into the wall, that laughed at my attempts to free them - and lapping serenely at the stone sill, I sat and tried to imagine that I was a free woman, and not banished eternally from my home. The view had been chosen apurpose, to deny me a look at the heart of Sanctum (a move for which I did not blame Kit) but instead I had sight of some few outer rings of carved walls and delicate gardens, jealously guarded by crenellated barriers and the occasional foot patrol across the ramparts. At guard stations, round palisades with canvas roofs, braziers burned with unwonted cheerfulness, and mortal Elyos were loath to leave the posts to travel to the next, lingering for as long as they dared in the relative dry warmth. I watched their clockwork rounds for some moments until the walls with their hand-cut details drew me, and then these began to bore as well. Beyond the furthest parapets lay only rain, a grey impenetrable mist, and at my best guess, the eastern horizon.

Feet swinging as I sat below that window, I set my chin in my palm and let my gaze drift. The Elyos made their rounds again, padding through the downpour to their next place of pause. Thunder cracked in the distance, and brief purple lightning lit the carved walls - the faces of figures from the endless war flickered and frowned, and shadows moved across their stone armor and feathered wings. The mural I had the greatest view of was one I did not recognize from any saga I could name, only that there was a series of figures that all seemed very angry about something, ranged against a set of shapes that were equally angry. Lapping at the knees of these argumentative Elyos was a manicured canopy of green, every leaf perfectly level, likely trimmed by a Daeva gardener with naught better to do than ensure the honed precision of the treetops; but thinking on that, my gaze was drawn downward into the only side-garden I could truly see, and through the veil of water I saw gracefully-arched trunks, flowering vines coaxed into intricate patterns, and an interesting and rather eccentric topiary in the ragged shape of a bird. Its very loose abstractness was at odds with the rest of the garden's obsessive attention to detail, and I was captivated immediately, feeling an intense desire to see it, touch it.

I left the curtain propped on the window, but leapt to my feet and began to pace. Kit had made good on her promise to cover my half-frozen stone floor, and though the furs they had found to do so were plush and incredibly soft under my bare feet, they made me work for balance whenever I felt the need to move; they did so now, and I corrected my uneven gait absentmindedly, moving from differing thicknesses and textures in a pattern that should have long ago worn a hole down to the marble. My strength was returning, drop by drop, and it no longer winded me to walk the nine steps that had nearly destroyed me not so long ago. I completed those nine and more, brain wandering as my feet could not, propelled by some nameless inner force to _move_, to _run_ if only I had the space -

I completed another round on the furs, my steps faster and faster, and came face to face with Kit and Kryson on their usual morning entrance, the High Chantress's arms laden with scrolls and papers. She stopped short, startled to see me up and agitated; I attempted to do the same, to prevent my skull meeting sharply with her nose, and my knee twisted out from under me. Kit dropped the scrolls in a flurry of paper to grasp my shoulders, and Kryson did the same with one arm, between the two of them saving me from an ignominious tumble onto the floor. "Are you hurt?" said Kit, her electric eyes welling with concern for the somewhat wild state in which she had found me. "Is something wrong? With your injury, you should not be moving about so -"

"My injury is of no consequence at the moment," I said in Elyan, made rather cross by being touched, even if for my own safety and rescue from embarrassment. I put my feet beneath me, made certain my leg would hold, and brushed away their grasping hands; then I drew myself to my full height and glared on a level with Kit, my quicksilver gaze locked to her impossibly blue one. "I have been kept in one cell or another for a month or more, if my reckoning of time is correct. I will go mad if I am not allowed outside, if even for a moment, to breathe free air."

Kit blinked, but she recovered admirably. "Kryson, gather those up, if you please," she said absently, gesturing to the papers she had spilt, and drew me a few steps to one side, continuing in Elyan. Our conversations were of the norm held in Asmoth, for speed and fluidity of debate, but from the look on her pixie face, she was fast reevaluating the thoroughness with which I had learned her mother tongue. "From whence comes this notion, all of a sudden?"

"I am bored senseless," I said bluntly, frowning at her as she blinked again, giving her little room for counterpoint. "Perhaps a Daeva may be merrily committed to the same endless goal, day in and day out, but I am mortal and thus prey to stagnancy. I do not ask that you take me out among the High Court, like some foreign ambassador -"

"My lord would have my head on a platter, High Chantress or no." Her cheeks pinked as her vivid imagination painted _that_ particular sight for her, and as I had seen the antics of Asmodian courtiers at Raum's right hand, I could hardly blame her for horror at the very thought.

"I only ask for a turn in some side-garden."

"What, out in the rain?" Her gullwing brows lifted, expecting my surrender on this issue, but I set my jaw and refused to be defeated so easily.

"You spoke of it yourself - an Elyos sun is too bright for an Asmodian, unless it is veiled." I lifted my chin, seeing other points with which to accentuate my claim. "Amidst the rain, no nosy Elyos nobles will stir from cover to catch glimpse of me. The gardens will be abandoned, and the rampart patrols may be forewarned, or replaced. And if I am truly held a _guest_ here, of your lord's mercy," and here Kit's pink cheeks drained of color, "then I am owed a boon for my work upon the Lay."

Kryson, by this point, had completed gathering the papers from the floor, and stood silent as a stone by the desk, his arms yet cradling the scrolls and not daring to set them down and call attention to himself; Kit, blessedly, saved me the chore of directing him to do so, but then she did an unexpected thing. "Tarry a moment, Kryson, if you please. Sathas?"

"Milady?" He poked his head from round the corner at the door, his hair a sandy brown two shades lighter than Kryson's, eyes only one shade darker green. Perhaps they were brothers; I had never spared so much thought for them as men before, only as fixtures in the never-changing world that was my prison.

"Do come in, and close the door behind you." He hesitated briefly, as if this conflicted with some order he had been given, or the training innate to the guard. But the command of a Daeva evidently overrode such precautions, as he did as asked and came to stand in front of the door, so that Kit and I were between Sathas and Kryson. "Now, Jaya," said Kit, turning once again to me, "this is no ordinary favor you ask me, and so boldly."

She meant in a tongue that the guards understood; but I knew full well what I was doing, and had done. "I do not ask it lightly."

"I know," sighed she, shaking her head very slightly, so that the bells in her ears rang that mad wedding-march for fleas. "You are ever loath to ask of me anything you cannot accomplish on your own. And I suppose you are owed that much; both our peoples crave the sky, whether we've the wings to fly it or not, and 'tis cruel to keep you from it. But my lord will not like it, nor agree readily. I suppose your continued cooperation is a condition of my acceptance?"

I was left blinking in the wake of her first statement, such a canny assessment of my character that I had hardly considered, and yet upon hearing it knew it to be utter truth. I switched abruptly to Asmoth, hoping to throw her out of balance. "The word of any Daeva is law, where the populace is concerned, is it not?"

She blinked once, but again she adjusted with remarkable speed, and fired back in the same tongue, "My lord is not a target for petty rooking."

Ah, so he _was_ a Daeva. I was loath to use my only trump in such a situation, but my options were dwindling quickly, and I would beat myself bloody upon my window's bars before the day was out if I could not attain at least the garden walkways. I lifted my chin, frowned my raspberry brows at Kit. "He has yet to involve himself in my welfare, beyond sending the scions of his reign to poke and prod and bother with their needling questions, all allegedly in his name. That is sheerest cowardice, among my people. As far as I am concerned, the only dealings I shall cleave to are those made with you, or the proud gyre, who at least has shown me the respect of a warrior. Your mysterious dandy Helios-lord, however, hides from me, afraid of a crippled _mortal_."

"Jaya, it is not so simple," gasped Kit, pale and aghast. She was clearly shaken, and as appreciative as she was of my native culture, she knew that what I had laid at her door was the worst form of disrespect I could have offered to her lord, and one she could hardly refute.

"I will no longer allow myself to be _cultivated_ in his name, when he hasn't the stones to approach me in his own flesh," I growled, and turned away from Kit to stalk to the window, to glare out of it at that strange ragged bird that beckoned from the swatch of green in the shadow of the walls. I could practically feel the guards' puzzled glances behind my back, for they could not understand what had just passed between us, and Kit's despairing look burrowing into my shoulders. Thunder rolled again, closer this time, and the violet flash lit the room for a heartbeat before fading away; in response the rain began to thicken and fall harder and louder, the topiary bird swaying crazily on its perch.

For long breaths I waited for Kit's response, either a quiet leave-taking, or an outright refusal, or her begging leave to attend the wishes of her lord; but I gave Kit too little credit in her role as High Chantress, and her voice in Elyan was level, but not somber. "We must have you go veiled, and you must go with full escort."

My heart rose, and I fought to contain it before it could betray me. "Define full escort," I answered automatically, in Elyan and warily as I turned, imagining an entire legion of soldiers crammed into that tiny, rain-filled garden. Kit was clearly having similar visions in spite of herself - her Selene's bow mouth quirked and came near to leaving her sober mien in tatters - but she had had practice at such things, it seemed. "Myself, and Nico, and this pair, of course. Ample escort, I think, without attracting undue attention for three ladies out walking in the rain."

"Milady," Sathas began in alarm, always the one slightly more outspoken than his near-twin, "should not m'lord be asked?"

Kit turned to him, electric eyes made distant, voice cool. "I was The Voice of Ten Thousand Chimes long before I bent my knee to my lord's cause," said she, imperious and with full regal bearing suddenly drawn about her like a cloak, an aura of power subtly influenced perhaps by the innate power held so carefully in check. It thrummed under my fingertips, like a sense of the distance thunder without the sound, and if Sathas and Kryson noted it, I saw no sign, aside from them both visibly shrinking back in sudden reminder of their status compared to hers. "Though my lord is often allowed to forget, my status is no less than his, as a princess of a noble House. As this matter does _not_ concern the welfare of the Furiae, my word is as good as his, or better."

Sathas swallowed hard and bowed, and clearly wished that Kit's full attention were not focused upon him; but the High Chantress was a merciful soul at least, and she let him be after a moment to impress upon the guardsmen _precisely_ who here was in command. "Now," said Kit as she turned once more to me, angel's timbre approaching once more her normal, lilting sweetness, "I must gather what is needed, and whilst I am gone, you _will_ sit and rest your leg. You will need all your strength for even a short walk in the gardens, unless you desire that we carry you -"

"Not bloody likely," I growled under my breath, much to Kit's ill-hidden amusement, but my calf was burning, and I already moved towards the divan without being told a second time.

"- or that I locate a crutch, or a cane or suchlike, which I believe you will also refuse." I waved her off, flopping bonelessly down upon the cushions to stretch my leg along their velvet upholstery. She flashed her crooked smirk my way, a reward for my deciding that I would rather not argue with her good sense. "I will be back shortly. Sathas, Kryson?"

"Milady." In uncanny unison, the both of them snapping to attention.

"You may return to your posts. No one is to be told of our little excursion, hmm?" She gave them each her winningest smile, and trust me when I say that Kit could be quite charming when she chose - though she did not flirt with the pair as Nico did, she was friendly and considered beautiful by Elyos standards, and likely could have outright owned any male of Sanctum with the merest crook of her little finger. Sathas and Kryson were not entirely unaffected, and with matched utterings of a somewhat muffled "yes, milady", they followed her to the door, where she breezed out and left them to stand, and me to sit and wait. I kneaded my leg in idle meditation, flexing and testing my own awareness of my toes, and was only somewhat surprised when the clatter began anew only scant handfuls of minutes after Kit's exit. When Kit strode back through the door of my quarters, it was with Nico in tow and a load of fabric in her arms, the women chatting amiably as they swept past my guardsmen without so much as a by-your-leave.

Greetings were exchanged; Nico flashed a grin as she held out a hand to aid me ("Upsy-daisy, Jaya!") and with assistance the fabric was pulled over my head to fall in neat folds over my thin house-gown. It was a heavier fabric, meant to guard against the cold, cornflower blue with sleeves that went well past my wrists, skirting my knuckles in suitably demure fashion. The square neckline sagged somewhat in the middle, however, for lack of bosom to cushion it. "It's a bit big in the chest," noted Nico, standing somewhat away and rubbing her chin while Kit fussed at the network of corsetlike ties at my back. Kit herself had exchanged her usual white gown for a plain saffron one - I guessed the blue confection I wore had come from her wardrobe, given that we were of similar height and build - while Nico, even shorter than Kit, had gotten into the spirit of things and worn something that actually covered a decent amount of honey-toned skin. Given that her leggings clung to her curves so as to leave as little as possible to the imagination, and her front-buttoned tunic was open to the navel, I grant that it wasn't much _more_ skin, but at least she would not catch her death of cold out in the rain.

I wondered briefly if a Daeva could catch cold, then snapped my wandering mind back into the here and now. "My apologies," I said to Nico, making faces at her, "I am not so _gifted_ in certain areas as some of us." She laughed, tossing her head, which made her robin's-egg hair sweep freely across her shoulders; her mismatched eyes, which I had grown accustomed to, were full of mischief. "Pretty sure we can find _something_ to pad your assets with," she teased, and I mrred and made irritable noises at her, until Kit cried foul at my constant fidgeting and bid me hold still.

"There's little enough I can do about the sleeves without making you seem twelve years old," said Kit, when the back had at last been properly tied. "But on the plus, it will hide that skin of yours. You're far too dark to be mistaken even for an Elyos with a deep tan." A light brush across my shoulders to ensure that the laces lay flat, and then she took up a brush to smooth my raspberry hair away from my face. While Kit worked with a set of delicate gold hairpins to array my mane in a more ladylike manner, Nico did in fact come up with a pair of handkerchiefs for the stuffing of the front of the dress; with another angry face, I snatched them from her and placed them thusly until the neckline of the gown lay where it ought. A spray of bangs to cover my forehead, my coralline knotted round my throat like a jade necklace, and the finishing touch was the veil, a wispy, gossamer thing that hid my neck and face, but for my eyes. The ladies stepped back to admire their handiwork; Nico produced a hand mirror from inside her tunic, and when I inspected it, an entirely different woman peered out from within its confines - an Elyos noblewoman, mysterious and modest save for the bright flash of defiance in her silver eyes.

"What d'you think?" Nico grinned, and I tilted my head this way and that, watching the flow of the veil with the slight movements, seeing Elyos-me's eyes narrow slightly. "There are some imperfections in this disguise, but on the whole, it will more than do," said Kit softly, and I nodded my approval. "Your leg is sound?"

"More than sound enough for this journey." And if it was not, well, I would soon find out firsthand exactly how much pressure my mistreated limb could take. "May I make a small request?"

Nico and Kit glanced at one another, and while the former burst into heady feminine giggles, Kit merely gave me her trademark crooked smirk and said, "You ask an awful lot of favors, once your mind is set upon a thing! But do go ahead. I confess to curiosity."

I felt almost stung, but I proceeded without hesitation, only a bit of color rising to my cheeks. "I wish to see the ragged bird topiary."

"Ragged bird -?" blinked Kit, clueless, but Nico ceased her laughter long enough for her face to light. "Oh, the bird! Yes, it's a weird one, innit? You can probably see it from your window, if you squint." I nodded confirmation. "That's the one. It is so strange, so unique -"

"So out of place! I love it, I know _exactly_ where it is. Boys!" This last was directed at the door as Nico pivoted on her heels, and Sathas and Kryson (who had been banished from my quarters for my outfitting) reappeared in a now-open doorway. "Is the coast clear?"

A slight pause. Kryson actually bothered to look up and down what was likely a corridor, while Sathas reported without double-checking, "Yes, milady."

"Excellent! Follow me." Nico preceded us out into the hall, striding happily, while Kit and I followed side by side. Sathas and Kryson locked the door to my quarters before falling in behind us, clearly attempting to be unobtrusive in their roles as escort - a difficult task, given that they each were head and shoulders above us three women - and though they loomed without intending to, I put my mind to forgetting them, watching Nico's wolfish lope, Kit's glissando step, my own irregular gait. Eyes downcast to preserve some false sense of modesty, I missed the child-page that passed us in the corridor, noticed her only after she was past, a blonde head soon eclipsed by Kryson's striding form. Askance I looked at Kit, whose eyebrows had risen a degree or two, but she did not seem alarmed, and thus I guessed that the page had seen nothing amiss in our little company, which was altogether a good omen.

Nico hummed and sang snatches of wandering tunes under her breath as she effortlessly navigated the inner corridors, a maze of labyrinthine hallways and staircases and plain, closed white doors and shuttered windows that sorely tested my sense of direction; the halls all seemed the same to me, smooth-planed pale stone, perhaps with a bit of carving here, a well-mended seam where the stone had shifted there. I thought I scented the kitchens at one four-way intersection, and at another was sure that Nico had walked us through it at least three times in a game to throw off my memory. Just when I opened my mouth to object, however, prepared to cite my aching leg as reason for brevity of motion, we came to a dead-end hall with a set of double doors ("Here we are!" said Nico; "At _last!"_ sighed Kit, as exasperated as I) and these Nico pushed through out into the brightness, disappearing in a swirl of light and rain.

The scent of green, living things emanating from that portal was almost overwhelming, and I nearly balked, suddenly and inexplicably afraid. But Kit, gentle, sweet Kit, touched subtly at my elbow, loaning me strength with wise eyes, and with a quiet nod of gratitude I forged onward, out into the garden and the veiled light. I took long moments to adjust, for it was near to painful after so long in the corridors to cope with that light; but once I had, I was not sorry of it. The doors opened onto the narrow end of a small garden shaped roughly like a rounded triangle, with the long side formed by the outer rampart and the short side by a more inner one - I could _just_ see the fires from the palisades through the trees, their branches and foliage coaxed to grow thick as thieves over the pathways to provide something of a canopy. It was not entirely impermeable, of course, and the five of us were spattered somewhat with rain, but we were not immediately drenched, and I counted that a small favor. The path, in octagonal grey stone, wound serpentine in and around scattered statuary and flowerbeds, important figures, I am sure, from Elyos history, as they each had a brass plate at their feet decrying their noteworthiness; these, though interesting enough for a sunny day, did not interest me.

No, what immediately took my attention was the centerpiece of the place, and all of us moved as one towards it, Nico and Kit watching my face, Sathas and Kryson following us all for our protection. I stepped forward on that slippery stone without regard for where I put my feet, drawn towards it, needing to see it, to _touch_ it for no reason that I could articulate. Its base was a gumdrop-shaped hedge roughly my height, and that piece of it carefully trimmed to thick lusciousness, the roundness of it seeming geometrically precise. The shape that was 'perched' atop it, however, was anything but - a thing like a roosting green raven, head up, wings and tail sleeked back, a shape that required, no, _demanded_ that the viewer's imagination pencil in the finest details. It was covered in stray shoots, nodding seedheads and little clusters of white flowers, absolutely beautiful in its alienness, completely at odds with its surroundings. Where everything in that tiny garden had been ruthlessly governed and clipped and pruned within an inch of its life, that ragged bird stood as a triumph, a single stray note in an orchestrated performance.

As I staggered closer, it began to dawn on me why I was so drawn to the thing, so needful of its message - I was caged here, in this obsessively perfect Elyos world, and the green raven represented freedom of a very specific kind, freedom of the heart, of the mind. It would never fly from Sanctum, never spread its flowered wings and leap haphazardly into the sky (though I could see, in my mind's eye, the motions it would make as it did so, the debris it would raise with its every movement) but it represented the _thought_ of doing exactly such. I had nearly worked this delicate theorem out to its inevitable conclusion when I glimpsed a grey-cloaked form that knelt on the pathway, on the far side of the green raven; having been about to step into the rain from the shelter of the trees, I paused, remembering vividly six grey cloaks descending upon an unwitting Asmodian convoy, fifteen men and women slaughtered in the name of a cargo none of them wanted, on a mission that should have been bloodless.

I stopped at the edge of the curtain of rain, my escort half a step behind me, and Kit's cold hand folded around my left elbow. No sooner had she done this than the form on the far side of the clearing rose, charcoal fabric swirling about him, and the face became visible in the depths of the hood, lit by a timely blink of distant lightning.

My worst fears were not disappointed. It was Oros, smooth-featured, wet white hair clinging to his forehead, his black eyes almost at peace.

I had forgotten how dark the gyre's eyes were. I remembered the last time I had seen him nearly a month prior, his visage sharp with anger, mouth a tight white line in profile as he made his exit from my cell. Such a contrast he made now! Such serenity I had never imagined would linger on his angular, hawkish face. My heart thrilled to triple-time as his eyes lifted from the green raven to meet my own, and there was a precious moment, a perfect singular silence where he saw us in the shadow of the trees and did not know us for anything other than fellow pilgrims, visitors to this tiny ineffable shrine to freedom, erected in the heart of Elysea where it would be least looked for. The guards were still as stone at my back, Nico holding her breath, Kit's icy fingers digging five separate warnings into my flesh. I never got the chance to decide if I wished to listen or ignore them.

My veil was speckled with rain, and water made the fabric translucent. I saw it in Oros's eyes, the moment he recognized me through all of Kit and Nico's best efforts at disguise, and anger, ugly and red, twisted his features into the gyre that I knew. Thunder rolled, counterpart to the lightning; the moment had seemed forever, but that was all it was, a moment, before Time must again resume its natural course.

_"What in Aion's Name do you think you're doing?!"_

Nico flinched. So did Sathas and Kryson, from the creaking of leather and metal at my back. Kit did not, instead straightening her back and lifting her chin subtly as Oros stalked over in a flurry of rain, the edges of his cloak making stormcrow wings as he plunged through the downpour to stop inches in front of us, abusing his height to loom over us, face contorted in sheer unrelenting fury. Kit's composure was absolutely remarkable in the face of that rage - "Nothing that I will not answer to our lord for, Lord Ourobouros" - and from the winter's-queen facade that settled over her features, I gained the impression that this was far from the first time the pair had differed so extremely on opinion. The gyre, by contrast, was a picture of controlled, ferocious ire, clever hands turned to white-knuckled fists beneath his cloak.

"And answer you will, _Lady_ Delainne," he hissed, absolutely livid, "for allowing this against all better judgment! _What_ has gotten into you? Wait, don't, I know _that_ answer -" and, switching abruptly to Asmoth, he wheeled upon me, like the sun turning all its vast power upon a hapless corner-shadow, so maddened that I thought I saw wisps of aether curling off his shoulders like steam. "_You!_ I should have expected no less than this, this _outright manipulation!"_ His arm shot out, and I thought he would strike me, or at the least snatch my arm to steer me towards the door, but instead he merely pointed back over my shoulder, the way we had come. "You are _not_ welcome here in this holy place," he snarled, leaning in to my face to underscore the intimidation. "You will return to your quarters _immediately_ or I swear -"

"You swear _what?"_ I growled back at him in Elyan, teeth bared, face flushed, but standing my ground. Granted, having a shouting match with a famed Daeva Assassin amidst an Elyos courtyard was not the best idea I had had in recent weeks, but I would _not_ be ordered about like a fractious beast of burden, nor cloistered away when it was within my rights to breathe free air. "You yourself, Elyos, spoke that first day that your people do not treat their prisoners as _slaves!_ I am _no_ child, nor any soldier of _yours_, to be browbeaten into submission!"

"Oros," said a soft voice, and I saw from the corner of my eye as Nico tugged at the gyre's sleeve. He ignored her, his world narrowed to my insolent face, the very fires of hell lit in his night-black eyes as he spat pure lyrical venom at my feet in Elyan. "And learned in our tongue, as well! Is there no low you will not stoop to, no sanctity you will not profane in your _spying_, Asmodian?"

"Oros," insisted Nico, as her pulling at his arm became more urgent. I ignored her as well, not about to walk away from the challenge that presented itself in the rain-soaked gyre. "_Spying?_ As I recall, Elyos, _you_ were the one who took _me_ from my people, not the other way round!"

"A condemned criminal enroute to the Barrow, oh yes, how _could_ I forget," he hissed, flashing eyeteeth in the corners of his mouth. "My liege has always had a soft spot for _charity cases!"_

_"OROS!!"_ bellowed Nico, taking both hands and grasping the gyre roughly to shake him bout the shoulders. He turned his wrath upon her without a thought, and she weathered it was a face that was white and drawn, though not from his anger - no, Nico was not afraid of Oros, but somewhat else was going on, something I had missed -

_"WHAT?!"_ he snarled, and she spun him about to face the east, pointing out and up, at a grey shadow that hung in the sky and, even to my untrained eyes, did not belong in a storm. Some of his fury lost momentum then, as he widened his eyes and his jaw fell slack, the vision of a Daeva far superior to that of a mortal. A lesser man might have cursed, and I saw the thought of such ghost over his hawkish face, but then he snapped to action, freeing himself of the cloak - this one had no place for his wings to pass through, as the one worn to the killing-fields had - and before it had hit the soaked stone path the knife-blade wings were surging to life and solidity, an aetheric gale that brushed my cheek and washed through my bones, so close it was palpable sensation. Straight up those glorious wings arced to their full length, pointed and sleek and a solid cloud-grey, and then he brought them to a more normal set before glaring over my head at the others. "Nico, with me! Kit, watch _this_ one," and here he _did_ touch me on the shoulder to push me back and away from him, and my knee gave out beneath the weight of that simple touch. Kryson knelt to aid me to my feet, but I stayed frozen where I fell, and from that prone view watched as Oros sprinted across the green raven's little clearing and _vaulted_ into the air, pumping his wings as he did so, so that they carried him up and over the trees, then over the wall, then towards that rapidly-growing shadow overhead. Nico was not far behind, tunic left on the cobbles and her upper half bared to the storm, her little rounded wings angled to catch up with the larger gyre.

"What is it?" I heard Sathas ask, as Nico and Oros's forms became less and less distinct in the rain, identified only by the shapes and shining feathers of their wings. It was Kit who answered, tremulously, her immortal eyes picking out what the rest of us could not. "There is an Asmodian Daeva up there," she said, and the truth of it was confirmed as the shape resolved briefly into a flash of black wings. Nico and Oros wheeled about it, flanking it, ready for a fight, and signal fires were flaring across the ramparts to signal the other Daevas that there was trouble afoot. "He is... carrying something -"

He dropped it. I saw it fall bonelessly from his arms as the Asmodian abandoned the figurative ship, shot straight up into the clouds and disappeared from sight; there was a moment of indecison as Oros and Nico hung there in the rain, and then the shrike went _up_ after him with blinding speed - while the gyre rolled midair to plummet straight _down_, a magnificent stoop from on high that made Kit gasp and my heart seem to stop in my chest. He made it look so easy, reaching the falling object in seconds, snatching it out of the sky and scudding hard to one side as he struggled with the momentum and his sudden change of mass, straining for altitude, the added weight bringing him desperately close to smashing either into the side of Sanctum's outer wall or into the landscape below. Fellow Daevas were winging to cover him, and follow Nico into the clouds, as he gradually drew closer. "It's a man," Kit said unexpectedly, and I squinted through the cover of rain out of disbelief - but there he was, legs dangling, the gyre's fingers dug into his chest so tightly that he was bleeding -

No, that wasn't quite right, because though Oros held on to that limp form with all his might, there was no _chance_ that his hands alone could have caused such a large wound, spilt so much blood. And the man was covered with it; so much so that as Oros labored to reach the outer walls, Daevas now mottling the air like fireflies at dusk, his burden seemed more scarlet than shadow, motes of red shaken free with every wingbeat, ostensibly to spatter the hills far below. Kit gasped once more and pressed her fingers to her mouth in horror, and Sathas and Kryson attended her with half-panicked questions, but my attention remained riveted to Oros and his half-dead Asmodian. I was certain the man was dead, certain no man could lose so much blood and yet live, and the closer Oros came the more certain I was of this assertion. Why Kit had been so clearly mortified I did not understand for long seconds, until the blurring veil of rain slackened for half a heartbeat, and Oros gave one mighty plunge of his great wings to clear the lip of the furthest ramparts in preparation of landing, bringing him and his cargo as close as they would come. The face, draped with dark hair and caked in blood both fresh and dried, was one I knew. The wound on his chest was not an idly-struck blow, but a word, carved into his very flesh.

The man was Pentarus Lockstep, spymaster in service to Avarran Carcarron, and one of the few who had voted for clemency at my trial. The word writ in gore across his naked torso was in Asmoth, ragged-edged with glints of bone and muscle between the gaping holes in his skin; it read, messily but unmistakably, _Traitor_.

"Sathas, Kryson," whispered Kit, her face white as she stepped forward in preparation of flaring her wings, "take her to her quarters. She was never here."

Frozen where I had fallen, I had no will to resist.


	9. Chapter 9

By the time I had regained my rain-beset window, Oros, Pentarus and all Daevas attendant had been cleared from the ramparts; the storm had nearly washed away the last trace that an injured Asmodian had ever been present, a broken scarlet line along the white stone, and the mortal guardsmen seemed loath to go near it and hasten its erasure. There was a reason for this, of course - my people were not above playing off our demonic reputation, including the (outrageously false) claim that our blood was poison to the Elyos - but I was cheated even of that much entertainment. The tedium was even more unbearable now, knowing that I must cool my heels alone in my quarters, my countryman spirited away into the keep, Aion alone knew where or for what precise purpose. I did not even know of a certainty whether Pentarus Lockstep survived his journey or not, and if he had, whether the hosts at Sanctum intended to keep him that way.

Sathas and Kryson were no help, of course. Faced with Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night's undiluted wrath once, they were in no hurry to provoke him a second time; despite my questions through the door and their burning curiosities, they remained steadfast outside my quarters, the bolt thrown and not daring to open it even to speak to my face. "It's for your own protection," I heard one of them mutter darkly, and frowning in consideration of that, at last I let them be.

My gown was soaked through, and as I wriggled awkwardly out of it and searched the linen-cove for fresh garments, I pondered the statement more deeply. I had been assured, before, that if all of Sanctum did not know I was kept in this tower-cell, then surely a large portion of the population did. That Sathas and Kryson feared some sort of reprisal for the garden excursion was educational in itself; the number of those aware of my presence, then, needs must be smaller than I had originally guessed, and my discovery perhaps a source of scandal among those of the High Court.

There had been at least eight guards, on differing shifts, during my tenure in the white-walled pit, and I was unsure if my current pair had numbered on their roster before the change of quarters. Two, perhaps three trainee healers had changed my bandages early in my stay. Oros had visited me, of course, and Kit, and Nico, Kiert Fireheart, Trist. (I numbered them on my fingers as I limped along, idly pulling a cotton gown over my head and wandering to my divan, forbidden from wearing trousers for reasons I could not fathom.) Terekai Nameless, who would have acted against me long ago if that had been his intent. And the dandy Helios-lord, I thought, remembering barred owl wings, a flash of liquid gold iris, a too-curious hooded face peering into the cage of a heart-wounded Asmodian.

Twenty men and women, give or take errors in my admittedly imperfect memory, with direct contact with me since my capture. Not a large contingent, I considered, given Sanctum's apparent size and population; how many others knew of me without ever having seen my face? Only a few, most likely - I could not envision even a Daeva-lord persuasive enough to yoke Oros and Kit in tandem absconding to the Elyos capitol, Asmodian prisoner in tow, without some crony of Ariel Lady of Light being aware of it. And if Ariel or her lackeys did _not_ know of me, my estimation of her and her Lords would take quite a sharp decline. Another facet to consider: how many rampart-guards had heard me screaming at Oros, or his deep-chested ripostes? Not many, I thought, not over the roar of the storm and the rumble of thunder. One or two, perhaps. That brought the total closer to the _very_ conservative neighborhood of thirty.

_Servants gossip,_ came a thought, but the only such I had seen was the child-page, who had seemed oblivious to my identity. I was forced to concede that I was, perhaps, an open secret at the court. Kit's effort at disguise had had deeper motive than simple obscurity, and her concession to the garden more dangerous than I had realized.

There was a lull in the storm outside, before the winds changed direction and premature night descended upon the Elyos stronghold, thunder dominating the skies and warning all Daevas aground that ownership of the skies belonged to Aion. My stomach growled unhappily, placing the time somewhat after the midday meal; I shifted uncomfortably and folded my legs beneath me on the divan, expecting that I should be forgotten in the hustle to secure and hide Pentarus. How quickly one grows accustomed to even one's meals being regulated like clockwork! Instead of moping, however, or moving to the desk to pick at today's swift-forgotten selection from the Lay, I sat where I was and watched the rain, emptying my mind of myself, absorbed in how the wind made the water dance in the darkening air, how the green raven far below seemed to fluff his leafy feathers in irritation.

After a time, I felt adrift, separate from my own body, meditatively peaceful and yet exquisitely aware of all things. Perhaps I slept; perhaps I dreamed. Dimly aware of my own existence, I heard a masculine voice, quiet, calm, with a rolling cadence like waves lapping at a cliff's base. _I cannot help you._

_Why not? You've nothing left to lose,_ said another, reasonably; lighter timbre, thicker vowels, the words drawled out like honey being poured from a jar.

_I am a dead man,_ answered the first, with the slightest shiver of tone, as if an iron will was being broken. _And dead men tell no tales._

The bolt on the door was thrown open with a sound that seemed disproportionately loud for the space of my quarters, and startled, I nearly tumbled off the divan, having been delicately balanced against the wall and partially upon the sill. I had only seconds to regain proper posture, to orient myself in an appropriately haughty manner towards the door; it would not do to be caught napping, especially when I was expecting not a meal or Kit's sweet company, but a reaming from Oros on the nature of Asmodian stupidity. I was disappointed on both counts, for though I managed to array myself on the divan as if I had merely been lounging and staring out the window, it was lanky Trist greeted my eyes, his scarlet hair braided back with a black ribbon, his white clothes and grey cloak spattered in blood. The turquoise eyes were troubled; the arrogance poised on my tongue died without breath to propel it, and I found myself asking in Elyan, "What is wrong?"

He shook his head, and I remembered that he could not speak in words that I possessed the ears to hear. The cloak he whirled from his shoulders, then held a hand to me, palm up, as if he would help me rise. I glanced at his hand - calluses traced his palm and the pads of his long fingers - and then back up at his eyes, drawn and tight, with the beginnings of dark circles smudged beneath. "Is it bad?"

A nod. He held up the cloak, shook it briefly, then extended his hand again. A cutting remark came to mind for the pantomime, but Trist had shown me nothing but a quirky, thoughtful kindness in my time in Sanctum; I remembered his hands patiently steadying me when I was aether-drunk from the mind shackles, the scissors nimbly skirting the tips of my ears, his fingers less clever than Oros's, but far gentler.

If Trist had been sent by Oros or his mysterious lord, the omen was a foul one. If he was here on his own - well, there was always the possibility that this was a trap, a way of quietly disposing of the evidence, but there had been many chances in previous days to do so, many times the Elyos could have slipped me poisoned tea and bread, or in a more underhanded turn, simply allowed my wound to fester. The muscles beneath the long, snaking scars pulsed with the thought, and before I could lose my courage, I put my hand into Trist's larger one. He smoothly pulled me to my feet, dropped the cloak about my shoulders, buckled the throat-clasp with an absent gesture as though so used to the minuscule chore that he hardly noticed anymore. Then he looked at me, generous mouth pressed into a thin, worried line, and made a gesture about his head that I failed at first to recognize. He scrunched his nose at me, then hunched over, folding his hands together like a priest, or robed monk....

"Oh, the hood," I mumbled absently, and pulled it forward to cover my hair and shade my face. Trist nodded then, let out a soundless sigh, and padded back the way he had come. I hesitated briefly - I had a pair of simple slippers, but they were wet with rain and lost amidst the sodden clothes in the closet - and so I decided to do without them. At the worst, Trist could carry me to wherever I was so urgently needed, and though I liked that thought no better than when Kit had put it to me earlier in the day, from the twinges in my leg, I feared that my pride would need to succumb to practicality before the night was out. Sathas and Kryson were still at their posts, Kryson chewing anxiously at his lower lip, the pair of them knowing even less about whatever game was afoot than I; Trist steered me with a gentle touch at the shoulder once I had cleared the door, and he shut the portal and threw the bolt, looking at the guardsmen in turn and pointing to the floor. The message was unmistakable - _Stay._

"But sir," said Sathas, startled and visibly alarmed as he eyed the blood on the Daeva's clothing, but before the man could object any further, Trist lifted a hand to forestall him. Then he repeated the _stay_ gesture, twice as emphatic as before, frowning at both of them. "Yes, m'lord," said Kryson, looking first at his companion, then to me. Men standing duty for an empty cell, a tidy bit of misdirection, that. Wherever I was being taken, it was being made to look as if I had not left at all.

Down the hall we went, Trist's hand a light guide at my shoulder, the slapping sounds of my bare feet against the stone floor masked by the tromp of his boots. The journey this time seemed much shorter and more direct than Nico's wandering jaunts across the baileys - Trist was clearly on a mission, and though he did not hurry me he was forced to moderate his longer stride that I needn't break into a run to keep up - and his hand never left my shoulder. Under other circumstances, I would have been annoyed beyond coherency at the familiarity, at this Elyos putting hands upon me where uninvited, but the strangeness of it all gnawed at me, the cloak-and-dagger aura about what Trist was doing. I burned with questions, even knowing that Trist could not provide me answers.

When Trist's mad pace at last slowed, it was in a part of the keep that I was entirely unfamiliar with, and could not have pointed out from my window if I tried; the angle was wrong, for one, but the stone had gradually shifted from pure smooth marble to a textured slate, an older, inner part of Sanctum, I imagined. I did not have long to ponder on it before Trist wrestled open a heavy square door and guided me inside. It was lit only by a fire burning merrily in the hearth in one corner, which my Asmodian eyes were thankful for, showing the room to be a wide rectangle with a low ceiling, plush furnishings and a truncated balcony, barely large enough to allow its doors to open unto the darkness. They were cracked to allow the hush of the storm to fill the space, but beyond its double sconces, the shadows were cloaked by the storm, and thus foiled my hopes of a sense of orientation.

Leaned against the wall next to the balcony doors, as if expecting any one of the room's occupants to rush toward it in hopes of escape, was a glowering and still blood-covered Oros, water pooling beneath his boots and his wings long since banished back to the aether. His arms were folded across his chest, the myriad accouterments of his trade as an Assassin laid out upon the hearth, along with several cloaks, to dry, and he seemed oddly naked without the swords at his hips, the daggers in the folds of his leathers. Seated upon a divan on the wall to Oros's left was Nico, a too-large red cambric shirt carelessly thrown over what had earlier been a _truly_ naked chest, and the effect in the firelight was somehow more obscene than if she had remained nude; in any case, she seemed far too weary for sensuality or her normal cheer. Kit was positioned on an ottoman by the hearth, her saffron gown abandoned for her usual white one, the bells in her delicate ears occasionally dripping rain onto her shoulders. These three I was not at all surprised to see; however, perched on the headrest at the end of Nico's divan was Kiert Fireheart, the swan-winged Daeva looking twice as haggard and blood-spattered as Trist, his normally neat-as-a-pin blonde plait ragged and wild, green eyes bleary as he lifted them to my face.

The last inhabitant of the room was entirely unexpected: in the corner directly across from Oros, in a pile of pillows and cushions on the floor, was Pentarus Lockstep, one of the few Daevas at Carcarron, bandages swaddling his chest and even now beginning to speckle and bleed through in the pattern of that word carved into his body. And though the Elyos were beautiful, so lovely of form that they were thought to bewitch others with their loveliness, there was never a more welcome thing I had seen than Pentarus, half-dead and sprawled on Sanctum's floor, his topaz eyes half-closed and glowing faintly from weariness and pain, black hair slack and matted with his own blood. He was slender and considered tall among my people, a hand or so over my own height, but the length of his limbs made him appear larger than life, his booted feet reaching the flagstones even from the center of his morass of pillows. His skin was bluish, approaching cobalt when it good health, but with so much blood lost and such a dire wound taken it rivalled Nico's hair for the title of robin's-egg, and immediately I stepped to the edge of the pillow-mire and knelt. The words came out in Asmoth, all of their own accord. "What have they done to you?"

His head snapped up, the glow of his eyes brightened, and with sudden panicked energy he shoved himself further into the corner of pillows with his feet, struggling away from me as if I were some monster to be reviled and feared. Confused, I shrank back, looked to Kiert, who shook his head slightly in exhaustion. He did not speak a word of Asmoth beyond my name, but he could guess my intent. "They cut out his tongue, and placed some sort of curse upon the wounds. I... cannot heal what remains. That he is not dead is solely by Aion's grace. Trist has tried to reach him -" and here the lanky redheaded Daeva moved to sit at Kiert's side, and the cleric rested his head upon Trist's shoulder, "- but he will not speak to an Elyos."

I paused; the lack of space between Trist and Kiert came as something of a surprise, to be sure, but more than that I was remembering my brief dream, and that I wore a hood that likely concealed something of my identity even from Pentarus's night-savvy eyes. The hood came down, and Pentarus's mad struggling stopped, his chest heaving like a rabbit caught in a snare; of a sudden he looked defeated, absolutely crushed of all hope, and as he shut his eyes and looked away I felt a pang of sympathy for my countryman. I had known that sentiment, all too well. "Dead men tell no tales?" I breathed in Asmoth, and Pentarus, shaken, puzzled, returned his glance to me. He was injured and captive of his worst enemy, and yet there was still the will to live there in his battered form, the spark of curiosity that was the mark of the man I had once known, if only in passing.

"Do you know him?" That, in Elyan, was Oros, from the creak and squeak of his wet leathers, coming off the wall to stand at my left shoulder. I looked up from where I was, and answered in kind, deciding then and there that I would not divulge the full truth of what Pentarus was without due cause. The fact that he was spymaster and Avarran's right hand would not sit well with the Elyos, not now that they had had a taste of what holding an uninformed Asmodian captive could be like. "Not well. He lived at Carcarron, but we were never close."

"Save your deceptions for more patient ears." Oros, his arms still folded over his chest, let his hands drop at that. They went automatically to where, on any other day, the hilts of his weapons would be waiting, talismans to sooth his nerves and busy his hands, but the blades and their matching scabbards all lay at the fire; denied his usual method of calm, he scowled at me as though it were my fault completely. "I know precisely who he is, and what he was. He was spymaster at Carcarron, Avarran's right hand, and my informant."

I suddenly felt as if I had been thrown from that balcony, free-falling in the rain, shocked cold to the core with no hope of seeing the ground. "Your _what?"_ I meant it to be forceful, but it came out a whisper. Raum had suspected, in the days leading up to his death, that there was a spy amongst us. I had never had opportunity to investigate - there had been precious little evidence other than Raum's intuition, and even less time for discretion in inquiry - but oh, how I _wished_ now that I had listened, that I had hunted the traitor down! Rivenstone had become a killing ground, and not for the first time in my brief life, much less in history.

Oros did not answer me, his black eyes immutable in the dim light; I looked to Pentarus, and said in numb, flat Asmoth, "Is it true? Were you his informant?" Pentarus dared to skirt my silver gaze with his yellow ones, like sickened moons on a harvest horizon. There was no nod of acceptance, but no denial either, and when he turned his head away it was as though he had shouted to all of Atreia, here I am, the betrayer of my own people.

Vividly, I remembered Raum, calling for me through the flames. I remembered my mother, rising bravely to meet her fate, sacrificing herself that the tide of battle might be turned, that the children under her protection might live. And, though I had not been present for it, I remembered Arkain Carcarron of centuries past, riding through the dark of night to where Rivenstone was burning, where he would fall from the Crown of Nails as Mishuvel bitterly wept. Treason had taken the lives of far too many Asmodians at Rivenstone, a haunted place, held accursed. Raum had believed that all ill-luck events had an all too human cause, and oh, how I wished I had _listened,_ had not dismissed it out of hand, for there in that quiet room in the Elysean capitol, he was proven right.

Oros and Pentarus, in fact the room entire, watched me closely as I worked this out for myself, a span of heartbeats, nothing more. In my breast I felt the stirrings of hatred, a great wyrm that gnawed at my heart and had been left to sleep while I healed under Elyos hands; I had directed that hatred at myself for failing Raum, then the Elyos for my capture, and then Oros for his baiting of me, giving me a reason to live when I had no other. I saw now who my hatred should have been focused upon the time entire, from the moment my mother fell at Terekai Nameless's hands up until this very moment, this final reveal, the dark side of my people rearing its ugliest head at last.

"Traitor," I said, tears choking my voice, a sorrow deeper than the ocean struggling with my anger for control. My temper won, and I shot to my feet and would have charged Pentarus to throttle him myself, but for Oros's quick hands; he picked me up round the middle, my limbs flailing and my lips discharging all manner of obscenities in Asmoth, the only projectiles within my reach to hurl at Pentarus. All of the assembled Daevas came to their feet and attempted intervention, Trist and Kiert standing before Pentarus as a pair of shields, Nico and Kit leaping forward as if they would take me from Oros, but the gyre would have none of it. He pulled me backward, through the open doors onto that tiny balcony in the rain, and whirling, threw me against the railing to stand himself between me and doorway, his breath heavy, his shoulders tight.

I stayed where I had been thrown save for scrambling on that slipper balcony for purchase, my claws dug into the railing, my abused leg trembling with the cold, ribs throbbing where they had impacted the rail. The rain pelted us like nails dropped from heaven, soaking Oros once again to the bone, rattling along the cloth of my borrowed cloak, burrowing into my hair and along the back of my neck under my coraline. I could not look at him, so furious I could have wept with it, caught between a need to beat Pentarus senseless and an equally powerful desire to fall to my knees and cry until I wasted away. I could not let Oros see that weakness in me - could not let the proud gyre, who capitalized on every mistake I made, see that frailty. The wounds my heart bore, seemingly without complaint, had been torn anew as if those I loved had died that very night. I thought I had come to terms with their loss, but now, presented with the true agent of their destruction, I had forgotten all that I was, the heart commanding the flesh.

How contemptible I must have seemed, to allow myself to be ruled by emotion. What a low and vulgar thing I was, to be torn from clumsy vengeance by the very Elyos to whom Pentarus had reported.

And though I tried to hate Oros all the more for Pentarus's crimes, tried to redirect that rage towards the proud gyre, some voice in my head spoke and said, _He is Elyos, and already your enemy; **he** did not force Pentarus to betray you._

We stayed like that for long heartbeats with nothing but the rain between us, lightning flashing far away, thunder rumbling in our chests. Then, unexpectedly, the gyre lifted a hand and yanked my hood forward to cover my exposed neck and hair, granting me that slight mercy, that tiny bit of shelter. I remembered a flash of him throwing his shadow over me, when I had been freed from the mind shackles and found myself in open sun; remembered him offering my coraline, a touchstone of identity, for the price of my name. _Kindness as bait,_ I thought, and was angry with him all over again.

"Cool your temper," Oros said in Elyan, not quite a growl. I could see shadows moving in the room behind him, hear quiet voices, indistinct over the rain, as the other Elyos repaired what they could of my mistake. "You are not here as an assassin by proxy. If my liege desired Pentarus dead, he would already be in the grave."

"Then why _am_ I here?" It was meant to be a challenge, but even I heard the bitterness in my own voice, the sense that I asked a question greater than the answer at hand. It made Oros hesitate briefly, and I lifted my head and made my face hard, my jaw stubborn, my eyes fierce. His black eyes became flecks of obsidian in his face in response, and whatever his initial words were, they died in his throat and gave rise to something different entirely. "He will not speak to Trist, who is the only one of us he cannot shut out. I would know what happened to him. How he was discovered."

"Errors made. The wrong person trusted." I spat it like venom at his feet. He let it go, wisely refusing to rise to my own cast.

"Pentarus trusted no one with the entirety of the truth. That much I credit him with - the knowledge that there were certain things he should _not_ know." That the knowledge could not be pulled from him, was the unspoken addendum. Again I remembered Jenica Poeset, who had bitten off her own tongue rather than allow the Elyos to use her lore as a weapon against her people. Avarran Carcarron had not even left Pentarus that exit, that graceful death. But even Avarran must not have known about Trist, or Kit, who read and wrote fluently in Asmoth. If he had, I was certain, even now Pentarus would be languishing beneath the citadel, or in the Barrow, wasting away until he either Faded of his own will or his divinity consumed his own body in desperation.

An awful way to die, the legends said. But Avarran had instead chosen to return Pentarus to his second masters, to send this message. Why? I couldn't help but wonder, mind stirred to curiosity after so much debate and mental exercise with Kit.

I wondered then, briefly, if perhaps Oros suspected Pentarus himself of being not entirely forthcoming with certain facts.

"Did you know who I was, before you brought me here?" I studied his face for the slightest flicker, the merest telltale sign of deception; but Oros knew this game, and had had far longer to practice at it. He gave away nothing even as he answered me.

"I suspected. It is not often that a mortal is banished to the White Barrow." A shrug. "I did not influence his vote at your trial, if that is what you are worrying over. I had no interest then in keeping your head upon your shoulders. Precious little interest I have _now,_ barring that you may yet make yourself useful." His eyes were more empty and darker than the Abyss, the eyes of a hunting falcon, dispassionate, divorced from all things of the earth and concerned only with the threats he perceived from the skies.

_Ah,_ I thought, some small thing at last becoming clear to me. _He thinks I am a threat._ My heart sped, and I could not divine if this proud Elyos before me knew the secret of my heritage, if Pentarus had given it away all unwitting, and my attempts to obfuscate it had been for naught. I could hardly ask outright, and Oros's delicate evasions were, as usual, perfectly ambivalent.

"And what would you know of my trial?" I dared, deciding that the worst that Oros could do were to execute me on the spot (a welcome exit from the tedium of my days) or escort me back to my quarters. His options were rather limited, given that I had been brought here clandestine in the first place. He shifted his weight to another leg, and I sensed more than saw him decide to deny me the information, but as he drew breath to reply, I struck first, straightening to my full height to stare up at him in defiance. "You would have me perform a favor at your behest. Would you bargain fairly for it, gyre? Do you come in spirit of supplicacy, as Kit had the grace to do?"

He snorted, narrowed those dark eyes. "Why should I? You have offered me nothing but deceptions."

"In what, precisely?" I hissed. "I do _not_ know Pentarus Lockstep in any capacity except in passing."

"A lie by omission is still a falsehood," said he, bristling. The balcony was small; even with my back to the rail, we stood so close that I could feel the aether rising off him like a warm wind, his anger lending his aura license to roam. "I have had _enough_ of such lies from your kind."

"And _I_ have had enough of your arrogant nature," I scowled, and without thinking I reached out with a finger to stab him in the chest. It was hardly a death wound, barely a mark left upon his leathers, but I did not care to contemplate the consequences of my actions. "Your pride does not frighten me, for in that area alone, I am a match for you. You will not bully me into complacency, nor provoke me into performing your duty without trade in kind."

He snarled without words and batted my hand away, gripped the front of my cloak with both hands to pull me up and forward, those black eyes suddenly far closer than I ever wanted them to be, his white teeth grit, rivers of water flowing across his angled cheeks. He knew I did not like to be touched, and used it to great effect, forcing my hands to his in a feeble attempt to break his grasp. "I know," he growled into that small space, his voice so low it could have been the groaning of the trees in the wind, "that Azhdeen is _not_ your true name, no matter how Pentarus styles you. There is some secret there, some concealment you would not have me know of. If you play me false, Asmodian, I _will_ discover it, and I will lay that dark secret at Lady Ariel's feet. It may destroy your people, or it may not - but I am absolutely _certain,_ Jaya Azhdeen, that it will destroy _you._"

He let me go, then, and I stumbled backward from the sudden release of pressure, trembling with rage, wanting to leap forward and tear his throat out with my own teeth much as I had attempted with Pentarus. But I could not - did not. I thought of how easily Oros's clever, powerful hands could have been around my throat. He lifted his chin and exhaled sharply, evidently having problems of his own in restraining himself, and I recalled of a sudden that we were alone on the balcony, as never he had allowed us to be before.

But he did not know. _He did not know._ And I was keenly aware of how much I desired to keep that information from him, he who was best placed to learn it and wield it in ways I did not wish to think of.

"_That_ is what I will _offer_ you," he said, his muscles humming with tension, hands moving to play along weapon-hilts that were no longer there. "My blindness, in that one matter. You will receive no better."

"You will not seek the knowledge, through _any_ source, in perpetuity." That he would bargain with me at all was a miracle, but I would not allow him any loopholes or convenient escapes.

"If it crosses my desk, I will not refute it."

"That is not what I asked."

Silence. "I will not seek the knowledge, through any source, in perpetuity."

"And I will speak with Pentarus, and obscure no knowledge gained from you." I paused. "I can make no guarantees."

Those black eyes narrowed a fraction. "_I_ can."

I opened my mouth to question it, to wonder what hold he could have over Pentarus that he would not already have dared to exert; but the empty look was back in his eyes, a murderous glint, cold and calculating. Seeing it, I decided that, like Pentarus, I simply did not want to know. Instead I held out my hand, reluctantly, and Oros met the clasp with similar unwillingness. Then the words, traditional: "A bargain fairly made. Aion help whomsoever should betray this trust."

"Aion help them, indeed," muttered Oros darkly, and he broke the clasp, turned away, and returned through the doors into the firelit room with me trailing in his shadow. The landscape had not much changed during our discussion, save that Trist had spirited Kiert away, likely to force the cleric to rest; Nico remained on the divan, looking concerned - she must have seen or heard some part of our exchange - whilst Kit had taken up station along the wall, that Pentarus had a Daeva placed at either flank. Oros moved to Nico, bent to whisper something in her ear, and the Gladiator got to her feet, notably lacking her usual display of energy, and exited into the corridor, the door clicking shut at her back. Though curious, it was not my concern; _that_ lay in the corner, an invalid, and I moved past the Daevas to sit cross-legged to his left, my back to Kit, keeping the gyre where I could see him as he stood at the head of the divan, where Kiert had previously perched. The both of us were soaked through, despite the valiant efforts of my thin cloak, but I had little enough care for his well-being, or mine.

"Hello, Pentarus," I said in Asmoth, stiffly formal. The Asmodian Daeva watched me carefully, topaz eyes darting beneath his black mane, dark, but nowhere close to the jet of Oros's watchful eyes. "I never had the chance to _thank_ you for your vote of mercy. As you can see," and I lifted my hands to gesture vaguely at my surroundings, my face frosty with calm fury and my voice dripping with irony, "it was _quite_ preferable to the alternative."

His gaze flickered; over my shoulder, to where Nico was returning through the door. She padded to my side, knelt, dropped a sheaf of blank paper and a magicked quill pen in my lap, and then moved to the hearth to hold vigil over Oros's weaponry - as if it needed a chaperone, or _he_ needed a chaperone. I did not break my stare at Pentarus long enough to thank her, only picked up the items and set them casually by the traitor's hand. He did not move. "A dead man will tell tales today, I think, Pentarus. That is preferable to the alternative set before _you_." Those eyes moved to Oros without any prodding from me, and his hand trembled the slightest bit as he picked up the paper and pen. The quill scratched along the paper and left black, scrawling marks, uneven in places due to the lack of a flat surface upon which to bear down; on the bright side, however, the pen did not need a pot to produce ink, a clever bit of aether manipulation which Kit accredited Lumiel Lady of Wisdom, long before the Cataclysm provoked our peoples to dissonance.

_So it is true?_ he wrote; I was puzzled a moment, and seeing my slight confusion, he arched a brow and scrawled, paper held at an angle so that I could read it, _You are their creature now._

"_Their_ creature?" I said, about to cry foul, but at the last moment remembered to modulate my tone; Kit shifted behind me, and Oros gave in at last and sat his full weight upon the divan's headrest, soaking it through almost instantaneously. "I am a prisoner here, much as you are."

He paused, then wrote again. _Avarran claimed you engineered your own escape. Even I thought it was true. _

"I did no such thing," I said, affronted, and more, shaken to the core; I had little enough time to ponder the implications of this statement, however, as Pentarus scribbled furiously across the parchment.

_One soldier survived the attack. He claimed that six Elyos came from nowhere, slaughtered the caravan, and carried you away. Avarran announced that you had defected to the Elyos and were to be killed on sight if found._

I had no ready answer for that - was not ready, indeed, in any part of my soul for it. Yes, Carcarron had convicted me at fair trial and sent me away for a crime I would not contest. Yes, the Elyos had found me before I had found the Barrow, and taken me away, but as a spoil of war, not as a deserter -

- and then I saw how easily the events that had transpired could be arrayed to Avarran Carcarron's liking; assuredly he thought me dead, interrogated and then discarded by the Elyos military, but he wanted my _memory_ impugned, my good name ruined, and there was no darker deed that could be assigned an Asmodian soul than defection to the Elyos. My kidnapping had been an unimaginable stroke of luck for the lord of the keep. No longer was he responsible for a mortal wasting away in the Barrow at the base of the tower, immured for the death of a prince. No, now he could lay the lives of a dozen good soldiers at my feet, and treason of the highest order.

And the law did not protect turncoats, no matter who their masters had been.

I sat and stared at that paper, feeling lightheaded, Pentarus's lopsided lettering burning holes in my brain. Some small part of me had always held out for hope of rescue; Jareth, if no one else, would pursue my return, at ransom if need be, follow every lead he had, exhaust every channel of access in hope of bringing me home. Not so, if I was publicly decried a traitor. Even my dear brother, the darling of the Academe at Synedell, would never accrue the status or capital needed to accomplish such a thing, not so long as I, indeed our very bloodline, was tainted with the earmarks of sedition.

Best he forgot about me. Best he saw good sense, I thought dizzily, and divorced himself utterly from me, the failure of the line.

Best I gave up all hope of seeing home again, and as I held that thought in my mind, my throat felt half-closed, as if a noose was tightening around it.

_It isn't true, then,_ wrote Pentarus, underlining the negative, and the scratching of the quill brought me out of my reverie; I set my jaw, bolstered myself against the tide of a new and growing grief. "No, it isn't true."

_What happened?_

I narrowed my eyes, finding a well of contempt for Pentarus and his damned curiosity, the curiosity that likely betrayed all our people. "That is not why I am here. I am here to ask how you were discovered."

He paused, his topaz eyes boring into my own, before dropping them again to the paper. _You act at their behest, and yet you claim you are not their creature._

"The bargains I make are none of your affair," I growled, but he began writing again before I had quite finished. _I would advise you to be careful when making bargains with that one._

I snorted. "You are hardly in any position for contempt, Pentarus." He shook his head, undaunted, and when he began to write once more I looked left, to Oros at the head of the divan, observing the exchange with an irritable expression. In clipped Elyan, I said, "He is unimpressed with your credentials, and mine."

"Color me surprised," he growled in Elyan, then switched to Asmoth to address Pentarus. "Remember what lies at stake, Lockstep. You do not test the girl's patience - you test mine."

_Girl?_ I thought, scowling, but Pentarus looked up from his scribbling to match his topaz eyes to a gaze as unforgiving as the waiting night. Pentarus broke first, writing faster now, sloppier, put in mind of some terrifying thing that had his eyes slightly widened and his cheeks pale. As he wrote, I reflected that though he was hypocritical to suggest it, Pentarus was very likely right - here I was, an Asmodian, a tool for an Elyan interrogator, grilling one of my own people. Much like how Oros had tag-teamed me, first with Trist, then in absentia with Kit, I was even now playing the role of the escape from his threat of divine retaliation.

That I had bargained myself into this corner did not bother me; I was fast expecting the gyre to take a mile when given an inch. No, what bothered me was how little I cared about reaching such a place - how inured I was to it, or perhaps that my desire to see Pentarus Lockstep suffer so overcame my loathing for Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night. A month ago, I would have thrown the gyre's meager offer back in his face, and likely hanged for it, come hell or high water. But I made no mistake, and did not lie to myself. I would see this farce unto its utmost completion, if it would cause Pentarus pain, and damn the consequences.

I was wondering if this was how Avarran Carcarron had felt, discovering the desire to make another Asmodian suffer as he sentenced me to the Barrow, when Pentarus finished writing, and let the paper drop from his nerveless hands.

Though that first sheet of paper had hastily blacked-out commentary at the top, likely scrawled over when Pentarus realized that I would not be alone in its review, the summation of events was so brief as to be almost curt. With Oros acting as the figurative sword held over Pentarus's head, I drew the details from him piece by piece, leaving no question unasked, no weasel-word unclarified. Apparently his method of communication with Oros acrost the Abyss had been in the form of tiny message-sprites, tiny wisps of semi-sapient aether no bigger than my pinkie-claw, held captive in glass vials hidden in Pentarus's quarters. I expected that blind old Kyaran, an aged mortal sorceress dwelling at Carcarron, would have been the one to discover even such a subtle method of transmitting messages, but it was in fact Callyan, mistress of blades and Avarran's sometime lover - dissatisfied with Avarran this month, she had turned her considerable charms to his closest ally, likely in an effort to force jealousy in Carcarron's liege. Regardless of whether or not it had worked, Callyan, always keen-nosed to fluctuations in the aether, had discovered the stash of vials and brought the evidence before Avarran, his heart still sore after Raum's death and quick to believe ill of anyone, even if the accusations _hadn't_ been perfectly on the mark.

His trial had been quieter, less public than mine. For all the province knew, Pentarus Lockstep was indefinitely deployed on some mission far afield, and his seat on Carcarron's inner council for the nonce left vacant, until his absence was considered a commonplace thing and a replacement could be elected. That he had not been executed on the spot had been a group decision, it seemed - Carcarron as a whole wished to send a message to the Elyos, that they could keep their spies and their deception, and all such discovered in their betrayal would be delivered unto their masters in the state they deserved.

The process took over three hours, dependant highly upon the speed with which Pentarus wrote his replies, and occasionally on how long it took me to coax an answer out of him, only rarely having to resort to Oros, the equivalent of brute-forcing the door to the Asmodian's mind. Nico and Kit were silent witnesses to the dreary, but ultimately necessary show, moving at times between hearth and divan; their presences seemed required if for nothing more than to ensure that Oros and I did not tear one another to pieces, or jointly inflict a similar fate upon Pentarus. I grilled Pentarus mercilessly, until my vision swam before my eyes and I feared I would not be able to think clearly, returning again and again to the same facts in the hopes that Pentarus would give up some close-held secret, some slight deception, but even I did not think he had such fortitude. Pentarus, the wound on his chest dripping clearly through the layers of bandages, was more exhausted than I was, even with the constitution of a Daeva to back him.

At last, Kit called a halt to the proceedings, out of mercy if nothing else; and truthfully, I was never more grateful to be allowed to cease and simply _be_ for a few moments. Kiert and Trist were recalled, the circles beneath their eyes lighter, likely having taken some refreshment to replenish their stores of energy - together Kiert and Nico lifted Pentarus from the cushions, his boots dragging on the slate as Trist held open the door, and the four of them exited together, their destination some secure trauma ward where Pentarus could be kept under watch. Even after they had gone, I remained where I sat on the cold stone floor, shivering beneath my wet cloak and unable to rise.

"Can you stand?" That was Kit; I did not see her cross from the hearth to kneel at my side, and started at her seemingly magical teleportation there. Her tone was one that implied she had asked the question before, and she gave my shoulder a tiny shake, her fine brows drawn together in worry, eyes pinched.

I thought about it, and my whole body answered with a violent tremor. I had had nothing to eat since the morning meal, and was still half-soaked from my jaunt with Oros in the rain. To admit that I could not do a thing so trivial as come to my feet would have made me come undone; and so I turned my head away, breath tremulous, to let my silence speak for itself.

Footsteps, and a shadow grown tall against the wall. Before I could react, Oros bent and put his hands beneath my shoulders from behind, lifting me so effortlessly and so suddenly that I was far too busy reeling with dizziness to be affronted at the contact. Kit, biting her lip, took my bare feet, taking care with my injured leg as they set me on the divan. "You've done very well, Jaya," I heard Kit say kindly, the world spinning so that I could not locate her face, or my tongue to thank her.

I shut my eyes against it; when I opened them again, Kit was gone, and Oros crouched at the hearth, coaxing the embers of the fire to life with a poker. My throat felt hoarse, my mouth dry, and his silhouette against the backdrop of the rising flames tugged at things in my memories that I did not have the strength to withstand. "Gyre," I croaked, and he paused, looked over his shoulder at me, and rose to pad over in silence. It felt as if it took quite some time, or perhaps I had merely been lying there for quite some time.

"Awake, are you?"

_Obviously,_ I thought at him, but I did not wish to waste what will I could muster. There was a blanket thrown over me, and it felt like it would smother all life from my body. "I would meet the man that holds the falcon's jesses."

Staid silence met me at first, such that I wondered if he had understood me, but there were gears turning behind those eyes black as beads. I was careful not to specify which falcon I meant, and he did not fail to pick up on such, but his only answer was to arch his white brows and say, "You're raving."

But I was not; I had had plenty of time to think, waiting for Pentarus to write out his answers to my questions. My vision swam and swirled again, and Oros seemed to be looking over me from very, very far away. "Bargain me a meeting, gyre."

Another silence, and he turned away. "Go back to sleep."

I did not know if that was acceptance or dissent, but I did. I had little choice, my body acting the part of the final betrayer.


	10. Chapter 10

_Wings in the dark._

_A myriad assortment of greyscale wings - shrike and owl, peregrine and albatross, swan and heron and kestrel and a thousand other birds I cannot name. Their storm is silent, edgeless, soft, and the wind they make whispers as a lover around my ears. Absent are the grey knife-blade wings of the gyre; unthinking, I seek them in the shining throng, and finding nothing, instead I see a pair of wings that do **not** belong. White dragon's wings, like the Balaur possess, but stately, feminine, almost dainty if not for their arch and span. Mishuvel the Pale was an albino, and one of the last dragon-winged Daevas among the Asmodians; they died out as much from superstition as from lack of heirs._

Styles of wings run in families,_ I am reminded by the voice of a teacher long dead, a woman whose face I cannot recall and whose name is no longer spoken among her people._

_The dragon dives from the center of the flock, and she sends the others scattering with the immense backwash from her shape, her serpentine form angling with effortless grace through the shadows. Her scales are immaculate white, her eyes enormous rubies, her talons the breadth of worlds, her heartbeat the symphony of creation. She soars past me, over me, so close that I, immobile, feel the tip of her spaded tail pass through my hair and brush my shoulder. The flock behind her wheels, curling in upon itself like a school of fish, and they follow her path through the dark air. I am suddenly surrounded by them, birds of all kinds on Atreia, and some of them are not birds at all but women and men, armed to the teeth, grim and pale and unseeing as they float within inches of my frozen form._

_The flock passes, and the knife-blade wings of a gyre are not among them, but I cannot turn to see where they have gone, chasing Mishuvel's dragon on some mysterious migration. The darkness is absolute without their whiteness to fill it, and the shadows press close and invade my ears and eyes and mouth, until I feel I will choke upon them._

"Hold her head still. She'll choke if you aren't mindful."

Dim red light behind my eyelids, and I was both overheated and freezingly cold. Someone's warm hands moved to brace my temples and cheeks, and something cool and porcelain pressed insistently at my lips, coaxing at the corner of my mouth. It proved to be a bowl of soup, and I did almost choke on it, unready for the liquid in my mouth.

"Careful! Swallow it for me, Jaya. Just a little bit." It was Kit, and though I was far from inclined to accede to her request, I complied anyway, lacking the strength for rebellion. The soup felt alien, too cold as it slid down my throat, as though I had been fed icewater. My eyes would not open, no matter how I tried to lift them; I attempted speech, attempted to ask what the _hell_ was going on and who was _touching_ me and why couldn't I move at all, and received more soup for my troubles.

It tasted first like rice-water, and then it tasted like ashes -

_Ashes rain from the blackened sky, and the Crown of Nails at Rivenstone has become a crown of flame._

_I am alone atop the baileys, surrounded by bodies turning to coal in the fire, and it is no natural flame, no orange and white beast with its deep-throated roar and predictable ways. No, this crimson monstrosity is aether-driven fire, and it runs in lines like snakes along the parapets, dividing and multiplying with horrific speed. I see it all round me, see a gap in the blaze, the last place left for me to go, and I turn and run. The flames give chase like a hound scenting a rabbit, devouring the very stone beneath my heels, and I feel it tremble and warp under my feet as I reach the entrance to the corner-tower. The baileys behind me fall away into flame with a eerie wail, but I am standing upon solid rock, the hungry flames thwarted and howling in anger to be denied their prey. The tower I stand in is the last structure remaining of the keep, and with hell at my back and a winding stair ahead, I climb the steps, my sword in hand._

_The stairs open unto a flat circular roof, like a duelling ring, and there engaged in lightning combat are two sparring figures, weapons flashing slivers of light in the scarlet dark. They are beautiful, swift, perfectly matched in the rarity of their grace, and the account of this conflict will descend through the following ages with the cloak of legend about it. They are Arkain Carcarron and Osric Rivenstone, half-brothers, joint rulers of the Twinned Duchy, and this is a battle Arkain is destined to lose._

_Where is Mishuvel? I think, with the narrow clarity of dreams, and then the faces of the fighters change. Where once stood Arkain is now Raum, clad head to foot in black, hair dark and eyes bright and hard, like aquamarines; where Osric was is now a figure in white with his face shrouded by the wrappings of a white scarf, and the battle takes a turn for the worse. Arkain-Raum is forced back, to the edge of the tower, his assailant pressing him mercilessly. My feet are moving though my heart is frozen in fear; my waking self knows that this is not how Raum dies, knows that this death belongs to his ancestor and the role of Mishuvel is the part I play, but by accepting the dream I am bound to its course, and the terms that it must dictate. Raum defends himself valiantly unto the last, his face grim, but his heel edges too far over the depression in the stone between the crenellations, and the man playing Osric pauses, reaches out, and **pushes**__ with the heel of one hand._

_Raum falls backwards over the edge, and I, keening his name, go after him._

_He reaches for me, pain writ on his every feature, and we find each other in the air, pull each other close, huddled and helpless as the children we once were. We fall, weightless and loose, tumbling down and down like the kestrels etched on the seal of Carcarron, locked together and spinning out of control. The ground below (ahead?) looms dark and terrible, and I shut my eyes against it, waiting for that dreaded impact -_

_And here is where the dream differs from the Lay I know and love: we land, and my back hits the rocky tor first (it does not hurt as much as I thought it would) and Raum collapses atop me, but he is fixed in place, speared by the sword that has, through the strangeness of dreams, never left my hand. His blood scalds my face, it is so hot, and his face is accusing and twisted out of recognition, his eyes turning vacant as he chokes and life bleeds from him. I cannot move. I am made to watch all that he is flee his mortal shell, tears filling my eyes, and then he lurches forward and I am trapped beneath his weight, suffocating._

_A hand in the dark; the body is moved, and I can breathe again. It is the man in white that stands over me, backlit by the keep as it burns to the ground, and he looks over me in slow, solemn judgment before he plunges his blade into my left shoulder. (Through and through, echoes Kit, her voice ghostly in my ears.) The shock of it reverberates down my arm and through my torso, cold as winter, and I find I am once more struggling to fill my lungs amid the waves of pain that wrack my body. Blood flutters through my temples like pigeons' wings about my shoulders._

_The man in white leaves the sword in my shoulder, the blade nicked and heavy, and he reaches up with a lean arm to unwind the scarf from about his head. It is Oros, and I am calm, to my own shock, unsurprised to see him here, his black eyes empty as he holds the length of cloth in his clawed hands. His wings appear with no fanfare and no flaring of the aether, first gossamer and then opaque, each feather made of steel, daggers for underdown and claymores for flight feathers, a thousand blades woven to grey uniformity. He kneels at my side, never blinking, and his shape and his shadow obscure the melting keep behind him, save for a bloodlike reflection in the blades of his feathers, fire playing along a thousand edges of water-surfaced steel. The white cloth in his hands has become sheer now, and he lays it gently, almost tenderly across my eyes, a veil for those in mourning, or for the honored dead -_

It is both, _he answers me before I ask, his voice unfamiliar and laced with strange harmonics. Then he plunges a hand into my chest, sudden, sharp, colder than the sword that pins me to the ground, and I watch through the veil as he rips out my heart, a chunk of flesh redder than an Asmodae sunset, redder than fire, redder than pain itself._

_He considers it as one would an apple, turns it this way and that, jaw stern, gaze cool - and then, he smiles with the fangs of an Asmodian in the corners of his mouth, lifts it to his lips, and opens wide._

I woke up, blessedly, though I did not thank myself for it. Every muscle in my body ached, as though I had run a courier's marathon, and perhaps I had; my heart pounded impossibly fast (still in my chest, as my left hand discovered, palm pressed over my breastbone) and my bad leg felt wrapped in fire all the way to my hip. My left shoulder, and the scar there, pulsed and throbbed like a thing with a life of its own, wrapping my entire arm and much of my chest in pain, like reaching, squeezing hands that tightened whenever I tried to move or breathe. I pressed my right hand to my shoulder, fingers cold and half-numb, and just held myself to a compact ball, shuddering until the crimson tide receded.

Sweat soaked me through, and a splitting migraine made circumstances no better. The ceiling was a familiar one, but the light was too bright and too close, causing all things in my gaze to haze over with white.

Shadows moved at the edge of my vision. I turned my head among the pillows - too quickly, oh, that was a mistake - and when the room had ceased carouselling about me as though I were become some twisted maypole, I saw that a man was seated to my left, his face yet indistinct, lost amidst a blur of sapphire robes. Then the light at last receded, a curtain drawn; that was Oros at my window, his leathers done in black and laced with silver embroidery, and with the mantle of the dream still laid thick about me, I flicked my eyes away, anywhere but his angled face and dark eyes, seeing all too easily the images I had of recent vacated. I found that I was back in my quarters, swaddled in blankets and furs in my too-comfortable and too-large bed, and Kit was seated on my divan, dressed in finery I had never before seen her display, a rich purple gown that came off her shoulder to skirt her arrow-straight collarbones. She looked at once both powerful and delicate, and her silver hair was up in elaborate twisted braids, the bells in her ears highlighted by little silver chains that arched from chime to chime. The only ruination to the picture she presented was how she twisted the rings on her hands, watching not me but the figure in blue near me; Oros seemed similarly tense, pacing from my window to the desk and back again, over and over, his footfalls soft and muffled further by the coverings on the floor.

Seated on one of my work-stools to my left, legs crossed at the knee and Kit's copy of the Lay in his lap, was a young man who was not as lithe as Kit, or as wiry as Oros, but the confidence of his presence did not require it - and he did seem thin beside them, but no waif, and the shoulders beneath his sapphire tunic were broad. Pale as marble and with handsome, boyish features, he seemed a typical Elyos noble, the kind of Daeva that were a kinah a dozen to the Asmodian eye. His hair was a perfectly ordinary shade of sandy brown, kept in close-cropped spikes, unusual only in that nobles typically wore it long; but his eyes were arresting, and they struck and pinned me where I was, liquid gold and large in his face, his pupils pinpricks and nearly lost amidst a glowing saffron sea. There was a hungry intelligence in those eyes, a gnawing need to search for knowledge, and knowledge he sought in my face as I threw off the shackles of sleep and sat up, dizzy, in my bed.

The owl. There was no mistaking those eyes, that silhouette, the way that the Assassin and High Chantress seemed to fidget in anxiety at my close approximation to their lord. Oros had bargained me my meeting, and more.

"What does it mean, to chase Mishuvel's dragon?" asked the owl in Elyan, his voice a trifle deeper than Oros's, resonant and clear, and every word precise and well-enunciated, as if he had received a rather expensive education. I remembered that voice giving commands on the road outside of Carcarron; if I had been uncertain before, all such tentative conclusions became ironclad. He lifted the little red volume, touched the cover in further indication. "I have searched the Lay for it, in vain, and Lady Ketterine herself is unfamiliar with the term."

Another Asmodian might have balked, or fallen upon him like a vulture. But I - I had asked for this meeting. That it came not on my own terms was something I should have expected, and these long weeks I had become used to compensating for my failings. "Have I been talking in my sleep?" I asked, cool and level as I could make myself, and the owl cracked a smile that could have illuminated the world.

"Raving, by way of fever-dreams," he said, arching his brows to soften the smile. "You've been quite ill for several days, but I am glad to see your fever has broken and your mind clear. Gallivating out in the rain, Lady Jaya, is hardly conducive to your health."

I hesitated. My anger lurked beneath the surface, the temptation to prickly, stubborn affrontedness attractive especially given the familiar form of address, but I could not take such a tack with this Elyos if I wished to achieve what I had asked the chance to accomplish. For one, Oros would surely strangle me, insolent mortal or no. His hands played faster and faster along his dagger-hilts, and I could not help but notice them, even as I contemplated the implications of being asleep for several days. "I made such a request, my lord. I wished to see the sky."

"And though commendable were Lady Ketterine's efforts to appease my my honored guest -" the smile turned briefly into a rueful grin, as he said it with a fair share of irony that I could hardly fail to see, "- the lapse of meals, and pulling you from your bed in the night to interrogate one of your own people? Allowing one guest to be forgotten in the tide to tend another? For that, I lay the blame at my own feet." I blinked, startled to hear an Elyos take responsibility for something, for _anything_ that was not advantageous to them, and the owl saw my face, but continued anyway. "I have been a poor host, and Lady Ketterine has informed me that you feel as such. I hope to make up for all such qualms now." He rose from the stool, placing the Lay on the bed by my hip, and swept into a courtly bow, a swirl of sapphire fabric and the back of his neck briefly exposed through pure courtesy. "I am known, in the short form, as High General of the Furiae, Prince Taion Helios of House Helios, aetheling. I offer my sincerest apologies for the coarseness of your treatment."

I paused again, considering it; I did not wish to grant forgiveness so lightly, not to my captor and _especially_ not to an Elyos Prince, if that was what he truly was. But in the end, my decision was a foregone conclusion. What other choice did I have? Demand the meeting only to send him packing when, surprise of surprises, it was granted? "Apology accepted," I said eventually, as if it had been dragged out of me, and he resumed his place upon the stool. Oros's pacing quickened the slightest bit, and the owl looked over his shoulder at the hovering gyre, arching his brows again. "At your ease, Oros. I am hardly in danger here."

"You sit at arm's length from an Asmodian, and think to lecture _me_ on danger," grumbled Oros, but his movement stopped; Taion tilted his head and replied, "Then be seated yourself, unless you fear an ill and unarmed mortal woman can so handily dispatch the pair of us." Oros bridled visibly, color surging into his cheeks, and stiffly, almost against his will he sat at the foot of the bed, where there was more than enough room for him to do so without condescending to touch me. I was unsure if such positioning was meant to appease my distaste for contact, or if he did so out of some technical advantage it would give him if I revealed myself all at once to be a master of deception the likes of which no Elyos had ever seen. In either case, it made the mattress bob, ever so slightly, and my head spun with it. It consternated me, to even briefly be reduced to such frailty.

When my inner horizon had levelled once more, I considered the three of them, then dropped my eyes to pick up the Lay and place it in my lap, stroking the cover with my fingers to allow myself a moment to think. The air between Oros and Taion was not that formality of lord and servant, or even the martial respect of commander and soldier; it was that of two brothers who communicated through mild bickering and banter, and Taion certainly seemed to know what words to speak to press Oros and his pride. It was an interesting thing to note, and made me wonder how long Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night had served this Helios prince, whose name did not hold any infamy among my people.

But what I had seen on Kit's face, as she sat on the divan and watched Taion Helios smirk at Oros, was no sisterly affection, but something different entirely. I could not ponder at it now, much as I would like to; it would have to be left until later.

"You asked me a question," I said, lifting my silver eyes from the Lay's leather cover to glance at the owl. He nodded, and gestured with a hand to the slim volume I held - a hand, I noted, that was soft-lined, with inkstains tucked beneath the nails, at odds with his otherwise immaculate appearance. "You spoke of it in your fever - chasing Mishuvel's dragon? A rather odd expression, I think, and one that does not translate easily into this tongue, though you seem to have an easy enough time of it."

That came as a bit of a shock, that I had been speaking in _Elyan_ while trapped in my dreams, but I schooled my features to smooth sternness and only nodded. "You did not find it in the Lay because it came into use in the centuries _after_ the Lay had already been written, and is considered archaic by the standards of today. Are you familiar with the tale?"

"Enlighten me," smiled Taion, which was not a yes or no but a clever evasion of both, likely learned from Oros and then refined, and his great golden eyes seemed twice as large as fascination animated his face. A scholar, I was absolutely certain now, a man of letters and intelligence.

"Toward the end of the tale, Mishuvel the Pale searches on the wing for Arkain Carcarron, who has been betrayed by one of his own. This betrayal causes Arkain to march to Rivenstone, where his brother is waiting for him, instead of to the fort held by Mishuvel's loyal soldiers, where Arkain would be safe." I paused. "That is a _very_ abridged version of events. There is quite a lot of subtext involved, and it is implied that Mishuvel's own search was impugned by misinformation."

"That is a fair conclusion to make, given the circumstances," Taion nodded, still smiling. Oros's eyes wandered to his liege's face, his expression stony; behind them on the divan, I saw Kit bite the corner of her lower lip.

"It is the root of the expression. To chase Mishuvel's dragon means many things - to hunt for ghosts you have no chance of catching, or to be sent searching by someone who means you never to find what you seek." I stopped, and thinking of Raum, forced myself to continue, forced my voice to remain level. "It also means to strive, and yet fail utterly, especially at the thing you have dedicated your life to."

"Mishuvel failed to rescue Arkain Carcarron," intoned Oros softly, perhaps some hidden signal for the owl to hear, and Taion looked to him, nodded, expression now sober. Then he returned his golden gaze to my silver one, sharp intellect tempering his boyish face, a glimpse of what a Prince was, what a leader among the Elyos could be. Little wonder Oros and Kit worried almost obsessively after his safety - I had been the same, once upon a time, before the flames and my failure. Taion Helios reminded me so very strongly of Raum, and what Raum might have become.

"Did you chase Mishuvel's dragon, then, Lady Jaya? Are you chasing it yet, even now?"

A daring question, but I was braced for it. I had asked for this meeting, after all. "I chase it, and it chases me."

Taion quirked one eyebrow and the corners of his mouth, all but saying aloud, _How interesting!_ "You did not request this meeting of the minds, I think, to discuss Carcarrese turns of phrase. Oros tells me you are straightforward, and not a woman wont to politicking - and not one in which patience is a virtue, which I must confess is an ailment I suffer from myself." Taion flashed a self-deprecating smile, and I could not help but slide a seething glare sidelong at the gyre, who was steadfast in the examination of his fingernails, while at the divan Kit covered her smiling mouth with the tips of her fingers. I let it be, however; I would have _words_ with him, but in my own time, no matter what my temper said as it beat futilely at the bars of my self-discipline. Taion, wisely, did not touch upon it either, seeming quite amused. "What would you have of me, Lady Jaya? Is there some other facet of my hospitality yet lacking?"

"Nothing that cannot be rectified." I paused again, looking at that earnest golden gaze, that deceptively young-looking face. He was an Elyos Daeva, and could not be trusted - or at least, that is what every bone in my body whispered to me, independant of the machinations of my mind.

I had had several hours to think, while I parroted over and over the same questions to Pentarus Lockstep, and awaited his scribbling the same answers. I had thought of Avarran Carcarron, now heirless and alone, lashing out at the very bloodline that he banished me to preserve; should he eventually desire its continuation, he had my brother well in hand, after all, practically captive at Synedell, and Jareth would not be allowed to leave the Academe for anything less than his graduation or my funeral. Which there would be none, for a traitor. Jareth was kind, and keen-minded, and handsome, and had inherited all of our mother's best qualities. He would do well; perhaps meet some lovely she-mage, or a healer to soothe his heart, and forget all about me. At least, I hoped that he would.

But sitting there on that cold slate floor in the dead of night, shivering with cold and the first stirrings of what had apparently been sickness, I had come to one inescapable conclusion: I would never see Asmodae again. I would never see Carcarron again. I would never see Pandaemonium, except perhaps as a star in the Elyos sky, if the purple smoke of the Abyss eddying through the blackness would briefly part. Carcarron's counsellors knew I was alive and knew I was held in Sanctum, but there would never be a rescue mounted, no ransom offered, no finger lifted to restore me to my homeland. Even if I managed to escape this place, to be free of Taion Helios and his people, who had cared for me in sickness and offered me work to earn my place, I would never be branded as anything less than a traitor.

And if I were going to be a traitor in the eyes of my people, then Aion damn me, I would be one in truth, and not one of convenience to Avarran Carcarron. I would _not_ rot in that pretty cage, and execute Avarran's goal with my own hand.

There I was, an Elyos Prince hanging on my every word, awaiting the dire pronouncement that I had asked him here to listen to, a decision I had already made, and thought I had made my peace with. Why, then, did I hesitate? Why did it have to hurt so much? Did the tears that pricked my eyes do so out of some misguided patriotism, some remaining sting of loyalty to my homeland? Was it because I missed Raum, and Jareth, and my mother who died that the three of us would live? Did I feel some strange remorse as I prepared to cast my lot in with the enemy we had fought our whole lives, the very foe that had stolen two of my loved ones from me and never so much as blinked? No. It hurt because I knew as soon as the words were spoken, they could not be taken back. I had been wounded by a thing that did not leave a mark upon the flesh; I had been betrayed, and abandoned, and left to wither and die. I had tried to make of my heart impervious to such simple, stupid things, and yet it hurt beyond measure, beyond reason to know that, Jareth aside, the only beings alive who cared enough about me to bother with saving me were my sworn enemies.

And if I spoke it, that would make it true, and I did not know if I was strong enough to hold up underneath its weight.

I did not know.

But I spoke anyway. It was never my way, to remain silent and still, and not to dare, or dream.

"I wish to defect," I said, after far too long of a pause, and I knew fluid shone in my silver eyes, but I made my jaw hard and my brow stubborn, and did not look at shocked Kit, or staring Oros. I narrowed my world to Taion Helios and his liquid-gold eyes, to the language in every plane of his face and every muscle of his lean frame. To his credit, he merely blinked, and though I knew he had been completely taken aback I sensed it more than saw it, sensed the change in the set of his shoulders and in the way he held himself; and then he asked, with sobriety appropriate to such, "Are you certain? You were quite ill -"

"I am _very_ certain." I lifted my chin a few degrees, as much to underscore the point as to delay the escape of the tears from my eyes. "I will do what I must - whatever it takes. Jaya Azhdeen is dead, and Asmodae is closed to her." And I wished to say more, but I could not; my throat closed, words trapped behind the lump of constricted sorrow, and I repeated to myself the oath that I would weep before _no_ man, much less an Elyos, hoping that I would come to believe the words.

Taion was not without mercy. He broke away first, to glance to Oros and Kit, and I turned away from them all to huddle against the tapestried wall, the woven cloth cool against my burning cheeks. I heard the men rise, heard them pace to where Kit had stood at the divan in a rustle of skirts, heard them talking quietly amongst themselves in quick, hushed Elyan. I let them be and did not even attempt to eavesdrop. I pulled my knees up to my chest and surreptitiously wiped my eyes, telling myself that I was not weeping, I was _not,_ and that saltwater issuing forth from my eyes was a thing equal unto sweat, a reaction to stress. So I told myself, and a larger or more pointless self-deception I have never perpetrated, but I let myself, and prayed that the Elyos would not tear down that fragile illusion.

It was Kit who returned first, and she moved the stool aside to sit on the bed proper, the last spectre I had approaching a thing I could call a friend. Taion and Oros stood behind her, shoulder to shoulder, and I saw that Oros was a smidgen taller, his stance more tight and tense - it is strange the things one notices, when all other things blur together - and then Kit was biting her lower lip again and asking in careful, dulcet tones, "Jaya, this is a dire thing you have said. If you would unsay it, only speak it to me." Her electric eyes were wide, her face blanched, her hand tremulous upon the coverlet. She feared for me, I realized then, feared for my sanity and my safety. "There are no other witnesses but the three of us, and if you wish it unsaid, we will take it with us to our graves. You need not do this thing."

I let loose a bitter, half-choked laugh, like broken glass even to my own ears. "Thank you, Kit," I said, and I turned towards them at last, my back to the tapestry and my knees canted to one side. "But I am sure. There is no other road left me - no other choice."

"This is unprecedented," said Taion, who suddenly seemed far older than he had before, some vast weight mantled about him now that he was presented with this turn of events. "It will not be easy. Far from it, in fact." But Oros put his hand upon the owl's shoulder, and at Taion's probing look the gyre merely shook his head, and I realized then that he understood far better than the others what a corner I had been backed into, how few options I had remaining me. They could hardly ransom me to a country that did not want me - could hardly release me to my own recognizance, now that I had seen even a tiny bit of Sanctum's inner workings - and I could not, would not stay a prisoner in that tower room forever, eternally picking away at translations to songs and ballads that I would never again hear played.

He might aid me, as he did at the beginning, when he gave me someone to hate and a reason to continue breathing, but he did not trust me. I saw as much in his black eyes, and I did not blame him for it in the least. After all, I was proving to be the very thing he claimed I was: treacherous.

"There must be wards put in place," sighed Taion, returning his gaze to me. "You will not like it, and it will likely be unpleasant. But you will be granted a limited amount of freedom afterwards, dependant, of course, upon continued good behavior."

I studied him a moment, thinking, finding refuge in aloofness as I had so often done before, when I was hurt and wished to mask it. "Wards? What wards, precisely?"

Oros crossed his arms over his chest, narrowed his dark eyes, and I think he had scented my game, knew what I was doing; and, in his own way, he did not disagree with it, for I also believe that Oros knew even then that when a mortal reaches their limit, sometimes they must pretend that nothing is wrong at all in order to function. So he fed my fire, gave me something else to think on other than the fact that I had just willingly sheared myself free of all attachments to my home and my people, an outcast in self-exile. "From what I understand, it is a _geas,_ to prevent someone from acting in a certain way. In this case, harming any of Ariel's subjects." Beat. "An Asmodian defector could hardly be allowed to wander about Sanctum without some sort of precaution in place, against precisely such an event."

"You would tamper with free will?" I shot back, weakly, and though I was quietly grateful for Oros picking such a fight with me, I had no way to express it, except to see it to its proper end.

"It is not a binding to obey - only to prevent harm. We would be mad to turn you loose without. For all we know, this was your plan all along," snorted Oros.

"This is quite the elaborate ruse I have perpetrated, to reach such an end! And that was an amazing trick, convincing your lord to take me home with him, like a lost kitten," I said, but my anger was already faded and unconvincing, the weight of the events attempting to eclipse it. "I'm rather impressed with myself. I wonder how this farce concludes?"

Oros shifted his weight and fixed me with a Look that I knew well, disdain mixed with a hint of mischief. My anger could not be summoned, it seemed, not even at his prodding; he took a different tack, then, in sheer ridiculousness, the mildness of his insult practically begging for me to respond in kind. "The well of your arrogance runs deep, Azhdeen." I did not have the heart to take genuine offense - he taunted me, amusingly enough, for my own good. I could not help but play the game, a minor distraction, but a valuable one nonetheless.

"I find that interesting, coming from such a prideful man as you, gyre."

"Insolent whelp."

"Cowardly charlatan."

"Deceiving wretch," and his mouth quavered and threatened to betray his stoic manner, a problem I found plagued me as well, upon seeing him having such difficulty.

"Petty thief."

"Common vandal."

"Braying jackass."

"Cheeky bitch," he sputtered, and won from me a watery smirk at last, what I could only think of as his goal all along. Kit and Taion, looking on in bemusement, seemed not to know whether to burst into laughter themselves or if they should attempt to preserve what little dignity remained; but I had decided that it was better to laugh briefly than to break down in tears, better to give in briefly to Oros and his teasing, and truly, it seemed easier to cope, like something in me had unwound. "If you are quite done," Taion drawled, deciding to err on the side of levity for the nonce, "I will withdraw, to make the necessary preparations. Unless you have, after all, decided against your current course?" One last chance to escape, but I shook my head, and the owl sighed once more, having given me many opportunities to have the thing undone. "I am uncertain how much time is needed, but I will at the least send up a _proper_ meal from the kitchens. I am sure you are quite sick of soup."

"You haven't the slightest idea," I muttered, which made Kit smile. Taion bowed, the picture of a pastoral country lord, then left, crossing to the door and chatting briefly at the entrance with Sathas and Kryson before the bolt was thrown and I could no longer discern their voices on the other side. Oros followed in his shadow, and once again, as always seemed to be the case, Kit and I were left to our own devices. She reached out to pat my hand, and I favored her with a smile, the best that I could muster. "I will be fine, Kit. Really. Thank you."

"Only speak it to me," she said once more, echoing herself from earlier, before she leaned back and let out a slow breath, setting the matter aside. "Now. Do you feel well enough to attempt that ninth stanza meter change? It has chafed at me for _days,_ and I think I have stumbled across a solution."

Bless her, dearest Kit, for her attempts to draw me into a work which had consumed my days and nights; but I could not give the Lay the attention it deserved, not in that state, and so instead I looked at her and said in my most innoucuous tone, "How long have you been in his service?" She stopped, and her eyes slid to my face, cautious, nervy as an untried mount on the battlefield.

"Six years, perhaps seven. Not long; the Furiae do not have an illustrious history." And I saw through her attempt to misdirect me, her desire to pique my interest in a thing that had been forbidden to discuss, and I wondered - no, that is incorrect. To say that I _wondered_ is to imply that I had no inkling, no clue of what turmoil lay beneath the calm, still pools of Kit's eyes.

But Kit was my friend, or the closest thing I had to one. I could learn to let go.

"Who are the Furiae?" I asked, acquiescing to her bait, and the tension in her shoulders lessened immediately now that I had allowed the conversation to drift in a different direction. She smoothed the creases from her skirts and folded her hands in her lap, and allowed herself a smile. "A small task force detailed by House Helios for the accomplishment of unique missions and goals. You will, most likely, be attached to us at the end of it; we are not a legion of particular note," she said, with a sense of irony, "and I can hardly see how anyone at court will object, especially if you are painted a hostage instead of an ally."

I found myself frowning my eyebrows together. "That is an awfully low posting for a High Chantress, much less a prince." But Kit shook her head, smiling. "House Helios has their reasons. Perhaps Lord Taion will tell you, one day. I am content for the nonce to be High Chantress of nothing - I am like you, like Oros, in that I am not one for politics. I attend court only because my _station_, such as it is, requires it."

I paused, noting her lovely purple dress. "Did I pull you from some court function?"

She laughed and favored me with her crooked smile. "I should be thanking you for it! I left strict orders that we should be notified as soon as you showed so much as the first sign of waking. Would that court could have been avoided entire, but our shifts here aside, the courtiers as a whole believe you to be merely some reclusive poet I am sheltering, and I would not yet dispel that notion."

"Shifts?" I asked, and Kit nodded. "Oros and I have taken it in turns to watch over you as you slept. As we are quick to forget," and she hung her head somewhat, repentant, "you are mortal, and prone to sickness, dehydration, and suffering from lack of nutrition. I should not have taken you out into the rain, Jaya -"

I reached out and found her arm, and I managed a watery smile for her. That Oros had partaken of the lonely vigil did not surprise me as it aught; I only wondered futher at his motives, and if Taion had ordered him to attend to such duty, that Kit might get some rest. I felt certain that the High Chantress would have attended me in my illness, without regard for her own health, had she been allowed to forget to sleep. "I asked you to. If there is any fault in that I became ill, it is mine, no matter what His Owliness says."

"His Owliness?" Kit smirked. "Ah, would that you _could_ accompany me to court. You would scandalize them all within minutes, and those jewelled harpies are in need of a swift kick in the bustle."

"As wonderful a vengeance as that would be," I said, finding my smile a bit more firm than I could have ever hoped, "I think the only way I will enter the Elyos High Court will be in chains, or with my head on a pike." Kit made a noncommital noise, as she could not argue with that; but I was feeling somewhat more like myself, and rather than allow our conversation to die of neglect, I said, "You mentioned that you had puzzled out the meter change? I have not had a moment to think on it, truly." And without argument she rose from the stool to pace to my desk and retrieve the appropriate papers and pens, that we might resume our scratching and friendly debate.

Thus I let her draw me into conversation, into the great work that I had left unfinished. Thus is how an Asmodian, denying herself of her heritage, allowed the pain to fade. Thus is how I avoided examining several interesting points, such as Oros's unexpected and perplexing aid, or Kit's hungry look as she stared at Taion from the divan, or the idea that I yet did not know _precisely_ what it was that I had gotten into.

But I had hurt enough, and some things, I was beginning to discover, could wait for me to heal.


	11. Chapter 11

Though I absolutely _detested_ Corinthus Duran and his histories, for only a man with a soul as sharp and impassioned as a slab of butter could make the lore of my people completely uninteresting, I knew his words by heart; even if Raum and Jareth and I had not already spent ample time in Carcarron's impressive archives, my mother had been most insistent that our intellects as a whole be cultivated unto their fullest. Sadly, this meant that as soon as I was old enough to comprehend Duran and his dry, witless writing, I had been put to penning essays upon his spanned works, the nine volumes referred to as the _Codex Asmodae_. Unlike its parent work and similar scholastic staple, _The Book of the Asmodians_, it was essentially a glorified record of noble bloodlines and the outcomes of battles during the first few centuries of the Millennium War, and what should have been a riveting text failed at even that most basic aim of being moderately appealing. I had churned out paper after paper in the endless pursuit of being rid of the books, scribbling until my wrists were sore and my mind catatonic, but I had found use for the histories in my adulthood - they were, for one, an excellent tool with which to bore myself to sleep.

But even Corinthus Duran failed to bring me rest that night, my mind awhirl with all that I had heard, all that I had said, all that I had seen. Kit had stayed to partake of the evening meal with me, perhaps afraid at first to leave me to my own devices, and for that I was grateful; but she and the lively conversation she betokened could not remain forever, and some time after the sun had set, she was forced to return to her own quarters, my door barred to me, my guards presumably either taking their duty in shifts or having gone to bed entirely.

And then I was alone with my thoughts, precisely the thing I wished to avoid the most. I resolved to think as little as possible until the morning's light.

I did attempt rest, stubbornly tossing and turning among the bed coverings, scattering blankets and furs, beating pillows into submission, all to no avail. My leg ached dully, but no more so than usual, and my shoulder was blessedly quiet, a small favor from Aion that I did not have the grace to be thankful for. The blackness of my quarters was soothing most nights, a pitch so complete that even my Asmodian night-eyes had trouble in the darkest corners, but that night it was distracting, irritating; after a time I shoved the bedclothes aside and leapt to my unsteady feet, marching over to the window and stubbing my toes on the clawed foot of my divan in the process. I hissed all manner of quiet obscenities as I flung myself down on the low couch, grasping at my foot, massaging my hurt pride as much as my flesh, and then I propped open the curtain on my window and stared out into a clear moonlit night, its peace a sharp contrast to my mood, angry and brooding.

Rain threatened on the eastern horizon again, clouds ominous, mottling the stars where the sky and earth met. It had been the beginning of the winter rains at Carcarron, when I had been blithely carted away to this frustrating existence - and, having given the declining temperature little thought in the previous weeks, I wondered just how differently the season would go, here in the south of Atreia. By now, at home there would have already been the first hard chill of winter, the river's edges frozen over, but not quite solid enough to tread upon without fear; perhaps the first snow had yet come, thick, fat drops of white dancing through the courtyards and riming the bubble-glass windows in frost. There were no glass windows in Sanctum, at least none that I had seen, but perhaps it never experienced anything worse than a good rain, and I was unexpectedly moved by that, by the thought that I would never again see the world blanketed in a carpet of snow, virgin and pure, all things for just a few hours, or even a few moments, made fresh and new and unsullied by life and its hard-won wisdom.

_Damnation._ I scrubbed at my face with the heels of my hands and refused to acknowledge the wetness of my eyes, especially over such a petty matter, cursing absently and fluently enough to make a sailor's hair turn white.

When the river of my self-pity had at last run dry, I sat on the divan and rubbed my aching leg, looking out at the peaceful night, at the guards moving sedately between their palisades, their braziers like fireflies in the silvery air. Eventually I pulled my favorite fur from the bed (an ancient and huge silver worg pelt, soft as silk and smelling of lavender) to arm myself against the cold, and I sat at my windowsill and watched the moon march across the sky, and the guards on their rounds. At times I caught snatches of conversation, of laughter echoing across the divide when a soldier spoke a touch too loud; they did what they could, I thought, to endure what must have been an awfully boring and repetitive assignment, and I felt a pang of sympathy for them.

Still, I did not sleep, for when I nodded off just once, the image of the burning keep and Oros with my heart in his clawed hand awaited me behind my eyelids. I tumbled to the floor in my haste to escape that nightmare, and my pulse thudding a wild staccato beat, I decided to drowse at the window no more. The rampart guards and I kept a long, lonely vigil, time marked only by the creeping of the moon towards the horizon.

In the end, I was glad of my insomnia, for once more there came an Elyos to my door, but not openly - no, someone was attempting to pull the bolt back with as much stealth as they could muster, a quiet, slow grating of metal on wood that was loud as claws crost a chalkboard to my silence-tuned senses. If not for my lack of sleep, and if not for the deathly hush over the city as a whole, as like I would not have heard at all. Immediately my blood was up, my heart speeding from calm to pounding in a trice, and I knew I had but moments to react. Whatever lay beyond that door, I did not want it to catch me unawares. I flicked a glance to my bed - the blankets and pillows were in awful disarray, and in the dark certainly a day-eyed Elyos would mistake the form for a slumbering Asmodian - did I dare risk pulling closed the curtain, and perhaps having its motion betray me? I decided not. To my feet I went, across the floor as silent as I could to the darkened doorway of the bathing-cove, and I pressed myself to its inner wall. I would be practically invisible to Elyos eyes, as long as they did not think to look for me there, or if they had not thought to bring light. I prayed that would be enough.

I heard the door open with a faint click, quiet as the tumblers turning in a lock but absurdly loud to my senses, made even keener by adrenaline; I could see a large slice of my quarters from where I hid, and a black shape crept past me, across the spill of silver light from my window, its movements fluid and face hooded. My first thought was that it was Oros, come to end me in the night, but I knew the gyre's shadow, knew the grace innate in his bones; this was not him, but someone unknown to me entirely. The shadow moved towards my bed, and I had only seconds more, I knew, seconds in which to decide the course of the minutes to follow -

An irregular swathe of light darted across the wall; possibly the reflection of the moon on a blade, for I could not see what had caused it. I looked to the floor of my tiny foyer and saw a strange thing, that there was no light filtering through my open door, and I _knew_ that that was wrong, that no corridor in a sun-worshipping city such as Sanctum would be completely darkened at _any_ time of night. Where, for that matter, where my guards? Dismissed, or worse, dispatched by this unknown intruder?

I let the worg pelt fall in a silken hush to the floor, the muscles in my thighs bunched and my calf already clamoring in protest, and my would-be assassin slipped completely from my limited field of vision. _Aion help me,_ I breathed, and then I moved from the dark on the balls of my feet, into the foyer and out the door. I felt certain that I had been heard, that I had been somehow detected, sure that any moment I would be pursued - how could I have gone unseen, lame as I was? But I would not linger long enough to find out for sure.

The corridor was dark, the sconces snuffed, and one of my guards lay in a heap at the base of the wall by the doorway, a dark stain pooling beneath him on the marble. I wanted to _run_, to move as fast as I could as far as I could from the threat, wished to flee with every molecule of myself; but my guards had been kind to me, and I had already condemned fifteen or so souls to the Abyss, my very presence bringing death wherever I trod. I could not leave him, and so I knelt in a rush (it was Sathas, I discovered upon close inspection, laying limp and frighteningly still) and put one cold hand at his neck. Alive, but barely, his pulse slow and thready. I bit my lip, looked to the door - still free of an assassin's shadow - and my mind roiling, I pondered in a flurry what to do. Sathas was at least half again my weight, and my leg would not carry us both into the arms of safety, presuming I could find Kit, or Oros, or any Elyos who would not eviscerate me on sight; but I could not leave him here, could not allow him to bleed to death on the flagstones, or to allow the shadow in my room to be done with me and away before the dawn came.

In the end, the solution that came to me was so brilliant in its simplicity that I felt a jabbering _idiot_ for having not seen it immediately. To that, I blame a month of sedentary lifestyle, my leg half-healed, forbidden all training and the arms that were mine by right - I had become witless through fear, like some backwoods farmer, used to thinking in the patterns of a civilian.

I put an end to that when I pulled my door shut and threw the damned bolt, with a noise like the crack of thunder.

Immediately there came a cry from inside my quarters, a male voice, unfamiliar and dismayed. I thought to fear, then, that whoever had come for me in the night had talents in the aether, and in a panic I pulled Sathas's sword from its scabbard and jammed it in the locking mechanism; it seemed such actions, though prudent, were unfounded, as I heard running boot steps and saw the door shiver from impact, as though the man inside were trying to break it down.

The door held, to my surprise, refusing obstinately to burst open, and I unabashedly thanked whatever carpenter had crafted an Elyos door as stubborn as Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night. Then, regaining my composure drop by drop, I addressed the sconces and commanded them to light, which they did so, burning merrily in their places along the entire corridor as though nothing at all were amiss. The door shuddered again, then a third time, then a fourth; I knelt once more, leaned over Sathas and felt along his armor for the place where he was injured, and the footsteps inside stomped away. I found a rent in his chainmail easily enough, ugly and jagged-edged, and as I stared at it there came a crash beyond the door, as of someone overturning furniture. I thought with quick spikes of grief of the beautiful little desk Kit had brought for me, of the absurdly comfortable divan. Ah, well. The bars of the window were quite solid, of that much I was certain, and the furniture could not be replaced. If the Lay was damaged, I would be sick to my very soul, but then, better soul-sick than bleeding my life out on the pretty white marble.

Poor, abused, unlucky Sathas. I shredded the lower half of my nightgown with my claws, transforming a demure and unpretentious garment into something short enough to make even the most daring Elyos take pause, packing the ragged strips into Sathas's wound as best I could. I had the barest grasp of first aid, enough to know that he should not be moved, and to hold pressure on the slow dark leak from his gut with my own two hands. That was all, and since to leave Sathas to bleed would be a death sentence, I sat on my haunches on the cold stone floor for the ruckus to be noticed, as I was sure it would be, given the noise my assailant was now making in my room. It continued for minutes on end, and the mess being made of my quarters must have been absolutely horrific.

As I waited, I contemplated rather detachedly how I was going to explain being caught with a wounded, unconscious guard and blood on my Asmodian hands to the first patrol to come by; I even heard them tromping further down the corridor, the clatter and stomp of multiple sets of boots. Blessedly, I was spared their scrutiny by the twin spectres of Oros and Kit warding them away, the latter having thrown a dressing-gown over her nightwear and, from the magpie-nest of her metallic hair, had clearly been freshly roused from her bed. Oros, to contrast, looked as sleek and deadly as he ever had, his black eyes narrowed in suspicion and a dagger glittering in his quick hands. Perhaps Assassins did not sleep, or perhaps Oros merely kept odd hours. I would not find the chance nor the courage to ask for quite some time afterward.

Kit pushed past him without so much as a by-your-leave when she saw me, rushing forth in a patter of slippered feet and a storm of silks, heedless of the blood seeping into her clothes as she knelt. "Are you alright, Jaya? Sathas! Aion's grace, is he hurt?"

"I am fine - he never saw me. I fear Sathas has been stabbed." I pried up one hand, blood gleaming a wet burgundy across my dusky palm, and lowered it again in alarm at an ensuing gush of blood. Another crash, then a thump came from inside the room, the second noise dull, more like a dropped weight than shattering wood. "I found him like this. The lamps were out."

"How long ago?" Oros, of course, low and quick to the point, Kit's avenging shadow. I glanced up, paused, used the sternness in his gaze to steady myself. Some things are reliable, and I swear it, if the Abyss comes and swallows us all in a hail of brimstone and chaos, the last thing yet standing in all Atreia will be the gyre's monolithic pride. "Not long. Ten minutes, perhaps."

"Your hands, Jaya. I will take care of him," promised Kit, soothing but brisk, already beginning to carefully peel up my slick fingers. Ah, the triage mindset of Daeva support on the battlefield. "Did you move him?" I shook my head, withdrew my hands almost reluctantly. While Kit hovered over Sathas and began to carefully unpack his wound, Oros sheathed his dagger in favor of a long black blade, barely-visible runes etched into the surface, or floating _over_ the surface - he hardly held it still long enough for me to examine it in detail - but that edge was wicked, and it radiated brutal efficiency in a way that reminded me uncomfortably of my dreams. The guard's sword was yanked out of the locking mechanism and left to clatter to the floor, the bolt pushed back, the door kicked in with one powerful surge of his muscles -

- to find silence and shadows, eerie and chilling, the quiet of the lull before a storm. I smelled blood. Oros likely did as well, from his expression, but he went unhesitatingly into the dark, while Kit was focused on her work, her slender hands now bearing a tracery of white with every fine movement, blurs of aether made visible as mist in their working. Sathas was no Daeva, and could not be healed as one, but the bleeding could be staunched until he could be seen by a healer of greater skill and better equipment.

I considered Sathas's sword where Oros had dropped it, careless perhaps, more likely yet _another_ test from the eternally trusting gyre; I let it be and rose, the torn and bloodied hem of my nightgown now skirting the tops of my thighs, outrageously short by all standards excepting Nico, who was not shy in the least about displaying her agile form, or loaning me a pair of her side-tie bikini underwear. Into the dark I went, my eyes adjusting rapidly and my shadow thrown long before me, dusting the shape of Oros's back and neck, caught between shadow, sconce-light and moonlight. He was still, standing over some object on the floor, and I padded forward with no effort made to conceal my footsteps. He turned his head to eye me, black eyes seeming enormous and inky in his pale face, white brows pulled into a contemplative frown.

When he turned himself sideways that his back did not obscure my view, I saw that my quarters had been reduced to ruin. The divan was a lost cause, sadly, the desk overturned and two legs broken off; many of the tapestries on the walls had been torn down without regard, the tougher pieces surviving with minor damage, but older, more delicate ones practically rent in twain. The bed was large enough and heavy enough that only the pillows and furs were a target to be savaged, the mattress sliced open with some sort of blade and its wheat-straw stuffing spilled across the floor. Papers were everywhere, many ripped up or otherwise damaged, and I despaired of finding Mishuvel's handwritten Lay in decent condition, nevermind my own work upon the translation. _Where is the blood I smell?_ I wondered, but when my gaze reached the floor, I saw that my assailant was spread-eagle across the rugs, head tilted back that I could not see his face, his own dagger carving a ghastly grin from ear to ear. His chest and shoulders were scarlet to my night-eyes, and his life-fluids seeped into the rugs, the kill so fresh that I could practically taste the copper of it on my tongue. It was tantalizing, alluring in a way that I hated myself for.

I stared at that evil bit of work, shaken, though by all rights I should not have been; I had seen bodies before, and created several of my own, but that the man I had trapped so cleverly had chosen to take his own life rather than face the justice of House Helios -

But I stopped myself at that, eyed Oros in the glimmering dark, every muscle of him lean and hard, the blade in his hand less a threat and more a malicious promise. Yes, some part of me agreed with such a decision. A quick, clean death was a far better end than what awaited should the gyre find purchase for his claws, or worse yet, excuse to exercise his talents to the full.

"Anyone you know?" said Oros, and he prodded the body with the tip of one boot. It did not move, thankfully, though every foul dream I had ever had of warriors rising from their graves expected otherwise. I shook my head emphatically, my voice having made an ill-timed tactical retreat. He scoffed and turned fully to face me, blocking my view of the corpse once more, the blade lifted and shoved home into one of the scabbards he wore at his hips. "It seems Kit's not been as thorough as I'd hoped."

"Thorough?" I managed, as much to my surprise as that of Oros; he blinked at me, not expecting coherent thought, but he answered in his usual roundabout way. "Taion will likely tell you of it, but later. For now, I mistrust the ears in these walls." A pause, his gaze carefully impassive, voice cultured to very specifically neutral tones. "You will need to be moved to different quarters. Do you have a robe?"

"A what?" I stared at him, and then I followed his black eyes down, to my scandalous hemline and the borrowed pair of Nico's side-ties underneath. I had to quell the urge to dive into the bathing-cove, or yelp in dismay, or cover myself with my hands, any of which would have alerted Oros to the fact that I felt horribly naked. Instead I faced him down like a queen, aside from my cheeks and ears burning, but I felt sure that he could not see in the dark half so well as I; without a word, I stepped very calmly to my previous hiding-spot, where the worg pelt yet lay on the floor, and flung it round my shoulders. When I emerged, the silver fur heaped around me, I masked myself in my best frost-princess and said, "Better?"

Oros was too much the fox to be caught so easily, and only gestured that I should precede him through the tiny foyer and out the door. Kit was still crouched over Sathas, her hands red now past the wrist, but she was no longer alone in the corridor; and until that moment I had never seen a spirit-beast except in vivid illustrations, but I knew the creature for what she was on sight. She was rather slender and small, somewhere between feline and canine, her horns little more than curling nubs and her mane not quite the luxurious billowing cloud of adulthood - but she was a wind spirit and unmistakable, black with a great fluffy triple-drift of white and cerulean and permafrost-purple mane, and a breath of winter air about her that cleansed the scent of blood from my nostrils even before Oros had thrown the bolt behind us once more. She lay on the stones next to Kit, the size of a large worg, compact and graceful, and she and the High Chantress seemed to be deciding how best to lay Sathas on her strong back.

"Can you get his feet, Jaya?" said Kit, and holding the pelt about me in one hand, I moved over to them, helped move the guard without jostling him unduly, his face ashen in the sconces' flickering light. In the end it was a rather uncomfortable pose for the wind spirit, Sathas's head practically cradled between the stubs of her horns, but cushioned by her mane he was stable enough that she could stand and walk without him falling. "This is Solana, the East Wind. Solana, Jaya," Kit noted, her smile seeming a touch weary, but I nodded my head respectfully to the wind spirit. She let her pink tongue loll from her mouth in a distinctly doglike gesture, what passed for a friendly grin among the elementals. Then she flicked her cirrus-cloud tail and contrived to look impatient, and Kit managed a tired chuckle and nodded. "Yes, let's be off. At this rate, your horns will grow in and lock him in place."

Solana audibly snorted, which made Kit sigh a laugh. As this was happening, however, I saw over my shoulder that Oros made a series of sketches in the air over and around the bolt on my door, leaving slight depressions in the air in wake of his clever fingers, tiny distortions, shadows where there should be none. "Warding the room?" said Kit, laying a hand on Solana's powerful shoulders, and he grunted. I staggered on my feet when I felt something _snap_ into place, as if someone had struck me in the chest with a thick book, and there was a brief scarlet outline around bolt and door that faded away into nothing even as I watched, like an ember flares and dies. That Kit did not notice was a clear sign of how tired she had become, working with limited ability upon a mortal who was not the best receptacle for aether in the first place. "Was it so dreadful?"

"You know what they say." He turned on the balls of his feet and moved forward in a creak of leathers, the last member of our now-travelling troupe, apparently the hidden cue for which Solana waited to begin pacing. She and Kit took the lead, the High Chantress keeping a hand on Sathas's unmoving form to steady him, Solana's white mane and tail rippling like ice-lit waves as she paced forward. Oros walked behind her and somewhat to her left, and I mirrored him on the right, the worg pelt held tight around my shoulders. "A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords at dawn."

Kit made a noise of assent, as if this were some long-standing agreement or joke between the pair of them, and as we moved away from the sealed quarters and into the corridors proper, I dared to ask where we were headed. Oros glanced sidelong at me, and I held his eyes a long moment before he returned his gaze forward, as if expecting ambush around every corner of his own keep halls. When we reached an intersection, the guards they had warded off before settled around us, familiar faces all and Kryson among them, looking both shamefaced and stricken to see Sathas in such a state. Surrounded by a protective ring of armor and steel, Oros relaxed, but only by a smidgen. "Somewhere eminently safe. Even the greatest spies of the court do not tread past his door." And beyond that, he would not say a word, despite my quiet prodding. We marched on in an uncomfortable silence, then, which at the least allowed me time to observe. The guards who had joined us, as a whole, kept their eyes strictly forward, and did not stare or sneak glances either at Solana or myself; I knew them all in passing, culls from my time in the white-walled pit, and perhaps they had been strictly coached to see only what they were told to see.

Solana paced onward, her nails clicking across the marble floor, and when we came to a strange square staircase I wondered how she would navigate the steps with her burden on her back; as she stepped across the threshold, however, I saw blue markings flare to life across the first three stone risers, intricate and tiny and full of a racing and coruscating light. The markings continued wherever her paws touched, up to the first landing with little trouble, Kit close at hand to keep Sathas steady. Beneath her feet the same designs appeared, but in bright gold, their tracery slowly fading as she moved away from them, like footsteps being covered by falling snow. The guards with us fanned out at the stairway base, assuming positions long drilled into their bones, none of them, I saw, daring that first riser, instead standing guard just before it. Oros ascended the staircase without a backwards glance (his footsteps came in dark red, like dried blood) and not wishing to be seen a coward, I followed. I felt the aether in the ward-spell as soon as I crossed into its territory, a thrumming, searching thing like a hound baying at my soul, and though I was dizzy with it and its ozone taste on my tongue I kept walking, kept climbing those steps, focusing upon the one constant fixture in my world that was the broad plain of Oros's back.

My leg already complaining of the short journey, I let my hand brush the wall for balance, and I saw that my fingertips left designs of a different sort - more jagged and bold than those who preceded me, and mine were seemingly carved in stark, dead black.

Up we went atop those stairs, how high in the air I knew not until we reached the top, and the last landing opened unto spacious quarters, an octagonal tower-room with a high slanted ceiling and exposed rafters, the undersides of slate shingles visible if I squinted up into the shadows. There were teardrop-shaped windows in the four cardinal directions, all but what I judged the eastern window shuttered tight against the wind, and a massive rose-quartz hearth was set in the northeast, a dominant focal point of the chamber. Along the walls were rafter-high cases of books, scrolls and tomes, the upper shelves locked under glass, I imagine as much for preserving the texts as to prevent them crashing down on anyone unlucky to be beneath them if the tower shook in a stiff breeze. Thick carpets, rugs and exotic furs lined the floor, a discovery which was a wonder to my bare feet, and pillows were scattered everywhere in the area directly before the hearth, a nest of textiles making for quite the informal arrangement. Seated at the hearth and stirring the coals was Taion Helios, in night-robes much like Kit, though his were olive-green and seemed awfully scruffy for a Prince of such station; to his left in a mountain of pillows were Trist and Kiert, both in normal dress, the redhead with his head tilted back and clearly sound asleep, while Kiert sat nestled against his side, wide awake and watchful, his wheat-blonde hair loose and shining. Nico was opposite them, cross-legged in a little clear space on the carpets, a wool long-coat worn like a cloak about her shoulders.

Standing at the eastern window was a man I had not seen since my first day of capture, and Terekai Nameless turned from the view to look me in the eye, as patient and neutral as the mountains. Again I felt that sense of age, of power contained, of deep still pools where nothing stirs; I would be a fool to assault such discipline and power, and yet I found I still wished to do so, the banked embers of my grudge yet unsnuffed, and phantom smoke wafting to my nostrils like the ghost of my mother's ashes.

We might have stood there all night, Terekai awaiting my move while my temper warred with self-control, had not Solana waded through the sea of pillows to lay down at the hearth, at Taion's feet. Kiert immediately moved to Sathas, looking to Kit as he did so, and the pair were soon exchanging notes in quick, brisk tones, moving the unconscious guard to the warm stone hearth ("He'll catch his death of chill otherwise") and detailing Solana to lay beside him, loaning her warmth and bulk to his protection. Solana obliged, flicking her fluffy white mane and tail to cover him over, and laying her head in Taion's lap as an undisguised bid for affection. Oros moved to Taion whilst Nico leapt to her feet, the little gladiator sensing the tension between myself and Terekai, and she plucked at the worg pelt I wore and smiled for me. "C'mon, Jaya, come sit down, don't you bother about him. He's a great big silly once you get to know him."

"I do not _want_ to get to know him," I muttered, but I allowed Nico to drag me to the pillow-pit, and we made ourselves comfortable on the floor. Oros sat on the hearth on Taion's far side, divesting himself of weapons one at a time; Taion, stroking and massaging Solana's great furry head with the absent ease of one who has long lived with such a demanding creature, looked over to the sorcerer at the window and said, "Go ahead." This seemed to be another prearranged signal, as Terekai went over to the entry-landing - he crossed behind my back to do so, and every muscle of me tensed for that fraction of a moment as he passed through my blind spot - and then he spoke a Word, one that belonged to neither Asmoth nor Elyan nor any other Atreian tongue I could name. But a Word it was, and it hummed in my blood while I watched the markings on the stone flare once more to life, this time in the exact same shade of cyan as Terekai's eyes, crawling across the marble like spider's webs. The marks began to coalesce into lines, and then they formed a solid band across the threshold and seemed to continue to do so down the steps; I could not see from that angle, but I could feel it in the back of my skull, like when one knows a migraine is about to come on before it has done so. The others paid it little enough attention, but I leaned over to Nico and hissed, "What is he doing?"

"Locking the door, figuratively," she whispered back, our heads close as conspirators. "The whole tower's warded to the nines, and no one less than Ariel Herself could get in here against Terekai's will. Tai doesn't want anyone 'hearing' any of this," and her fingers even made the air-quotes, which opened up entirely new questions I was thirsty for the answers to.

"Hearing what?" I asked; but before she could answer, Taion cleared his throat, Kiert returned to his place at Trist's side (elbowing the lanky Elyos in the ribs, prompting him to awake with a snort) and Kit found a seat on the corner of the massive hearth, by Solana's tail, that she might keep a watchful eye on Sathas. "Now that everyone is here... It seems that rumour has gotten the best of us." Taion sighed, deeply weary, a poignant contrast to Solana beginning to purr like a fiend as his hands kneaded her ears. "That show on the ramparts did not precisely help matters -"

"It could hardly have been avoided," growled Oros, stripping himself of his last dagger and setting it down atop the others with a _clack_ of leather on steel. "Should I have allowed Pentarus to fall, then? Daeva the man may be, and made of stern stuff even for an Asmodian, but had I not acted, I think that we would _still_ be cleaning bits of him from the landscape."

"With a blotter," added Nico, helpfully, as though Oros's already graphic image needed any further vivid tints. Kiert looked as if he might gag, Kit as though she might burst into laughter.

"Still, it was so _very_ public, Oros," grimaced Taion. "I am not arguing that the thing was wrongly done, only that it has complicated matters even more so than I anticipated. Half of Sanctum's population, and almost _all_ of its Daevas, saw us bring Pentarus into custody. It has raised other questions, such as the identity of Lady Ketterine's mysterious and reclusive poet."

"Hence tonight's incident," Kit said as she plucked up a pillow and wedged it between herself and Solana's rump, that she might lean more comfortably against the spirit-beast. "Rumours breed quickly, and perhaps this one had bastard offspring, despite my efforts to the contrary. It is not so large a leap of intellect, after all. If House Helios shelters one Asmodian prisoner of war, perhaps their other guest is of the same ilk."

But Kiert shook his head. "The guard's injury was meant to kill, not wound. If you had arrived any later than you had, Kit, he would have already passed into Aion's arms."

"Jaya found him first," Kit smiled, "and sacrificed her wardrobe to pack his wound, and save his life." I had _almost_ forgotten about my state of dress, but Kit's good-natured needling turned every eye in the tower to me, and I made my back stiff and my jaw hard, the worg pelt pulled close to my form. "You'll set quite the fashion among the noblewomen, Jaya."

"And are you sure she did not stab him herself?" That was Terekai, and I felt venom welling in my throat, turned my silver gaze to scowl at him as he paced to the far side of the circle, dropping carelessly to the floor in a tucked-leg seat. Though there was no accusal or anger in his tone, and I had heard far worse from Oros, I yet took offense and was about to lay into him when the gyre spoke for me. "There was only one blade which she could have accessed," Oros argued, somewhat reluctantly. "The guard's own sword, which was inconsistent with the manner of injury, showed no signs of use, and furthermore was wedged into the bolt. The intruder was quite alive when we arrived, precluding a staged corpse."

"How certain are you?" said Terekai, and all light fled from Oros's black eyes as he replied, level and icy, "Far more certain than a man who has never taken a life at close range, sorcerer."

Ah. It seemed I was not the only one who took issue with Terekai Nameless. Taion merely huffed, however, as if he had seen this puppet-show played out far too many times, and said, "Aion's teeth! I will allow the pair of you to beat each other senseless, if you like, but _later_, for _now_ I need the both of you hale and whole. This presents a problem that may be quite tricky to resolve."

"Bodies usually do," Kiert murmured, and Trist, rubbing his eyes as he attempted to follow the tack of the conversation while still half-sleeping, nodded agreement. Taion chose not to highlight such a comment. "My original intention was to ward Lady Jaya, to preclude any harm to Ariel's subjects, and then present her to the Lady of Light in private as an attach to the Furiae -"

"Pretty much meaning you could do whatever the hell you wanted, as long as you kept your head down," Nico translated for me in stage-whisper, until Taion settled a look upon her like a disappointed father, and she looked briefly shamefaced and ducked her head. Apparently Taion was on quite familiar terms with his subjects, so much so that they did not fear to backtalk or interrupt him. He _did_ look young; I wondered if appearance reflected truth in his instance, for while there was no way to determine a Daeva's age based on appearance alone, there were always other clues. In any case, he cleared his throat and continued. "But that plan is unacceptable now, given that every hidden eye at the High Court is searching for an Asmodian in our ranks."

"What do you propose instead?" I said, and Taion's gold eyes moved to my face.

"You have confessed intent to defect, but we are all aware of the challenges of such a solution. Instead, I would seek to make it appear as if you are an Elyos born and bred, culled from mortal ranks to serve in the Furiae."

I felt one of my raspberry brows rise before I could quell it, and not a few other expressions ranging from skepticism to astonishment graced the visages of those present. "Oh, I _must_ hear this," Kit said under her breath, appearing wary and skeptical.

"Terekai?" Taion prompted, and the room shifted as one to stare at the sorcerer, who rubbed idly at his golden stubble before folding his arms over his chest. "There is a casting," he said, cyan eyes unfathomable as a winter sky, "that will obscure one's true form to the point that it cannot be dispelled or disproven by any method I am aware of, save the breaking of its focus. It is anchored in a physical object - a piece of jewelry or the like - and while worn in contact with the skin, one's appearance is in every way that of the target illusion. A Krall becomes one of the Mau, a Shugo may appear as a Kobold."

"Or an Asmodian may become an Elyos," Oros said, but without the growl I expected of the words; in fact, some unnamed emotion traced the undertones of his voice, there and gone before I could identify it. Terekai nodded, almost docilely. "Just so."

"You're madder than a march hare," said Kiert, outraged from his seat in the pillows, and when Trist gingerly touched his shoulder, the blonde cleric whirled on his lanky companion. "And _you_ are just as crazed! Do you have any idea what implications this holds for the High Court as a whole?"

"We are all aware of it," noted Taion, expression open and frank, "but the only Daeva alive with the knowledge of the casting sits just there to your left."

"Does Lady Ariel know of this?" said Kiert, rounding on Taion first, then Terekai. "No method to dispel or disprove beyond shattering whatever the spell is seated in? In the lower court _alone_ there are a thousand pieces of jewelry considered _iconic_ to the Houses, indeed the very bloodlines! And any one of them could be the centerpiece of an _Asmodian spy_ masquerading as the head of some noble line? Do _not_ touch me, Tristen Wanderer, I am in _no_ mood to be soothed." Poor Trist - he lifted his hands, palms out in surrender, rolled his turquoise eyes heavenward and flopped backward into the pillows with a sigh. Clearly, he had seen Kiert work himself into a froth many times before this night. And in truth, I did not disagree with Kiert's assertions, for what it meant to an Asmodian was that there could be any number of perfectly-disguised Elyos within my own people's court. It was a disturbing notion, to say the least. I had, naively, had no idea that deception and illusion could run so deep in _either_ of our peoples, much less _both_.

"Lady Ariel is quite aware," said Terekai, voice mild, the sorcerer unruffled by Kiert's near-hysterics. "But it is a very difficult working, and one that can force a Daeva to Fade if improperly performed." Oros muttered somewhat under his breath, along the lines of 'do us all a favor and improperly perform it', which made Taion reach out without looking to lightly cuff Oros crost the back of his head. Terekai eyed the gyre, unimpressed, but continued. "That Lord Taion wishes to implant a _geas_ concurrently with such a complex working is enough to sorely test my endurance and skill."

"And before I agree to _anything_ being laid upon me," I said, managing a word edgewise as I glared darkly at Terekai Nameless, "I will have it explained, in painful detail, precisely what is being done."

Terekai blinked. "I was under the impression that you had already agreed to whatever was necessary."

I had, in a very technical sense, but - "I am not an _idiot_, despite how you may view my people," I said in my most scathing tones. "And _you_ I have cause to trust even less than any other here. In fact, what is it that makes you believe I will allow you to lay hands on me, aetheric or physical? I ought to push you from the window!"

"He'd only winch his wings out, Jaya," said Nico reasonably, trying her best to prevent an insistent smile from ruining her poker-face, but I, like Kiert, was in no mood to be soothed. "It is a turn of phrase, Nico! Perhaps all of you have forgotten, or failed to realize in the first place," and here I slid my eyes among every face there, impassioned and cheeks flushed, "that I am _mortal_, and mortality demands _care_ when dealing with the immortal!" I tested each one of them in turn with my eyes, and noted their reactions; Nico looked down in sheepish shame, Terekai merely studious and detached, Kiert startled, as if he had hardly expected such circumspection from an Asmodian. Trist and Kit, ever the unwitting champions of my welfare, looked in turns pleasantly surprised and subtly smug, and Taion had a smile creeping at the corners of his mouth.

The gyre merely stared with his black eyes, and I saw in them a grudging sort of respect before I broke our gazes willingly and returned to Terekai. "You will explain the _geas_, and its terms and boundaries, and _if_ I am satisfied that my free will is not impinged upon, then I will concede. That is the bargain I offer." I leaned back on my haunches, pulled the worg pelt tighter about me, while Terekai's gold brows lifted.

"And if you are not satisfied?"

"Let us not wake the sleeping dragon before we are ready to battle it," interjected Taion, while Solana turned her head, butting her skull into his stomach, which made the last few words of the sentence come out breathlessly. When the owl had recovered, he added, smiling, "I am sure some accord can be reached. Do explain, for the lady's sake, Terekai."

And he did, with little enough care for those who heard him, though I think it was out of an inability to phrase it in lay-speech rather than an attempt to irritate me into submission with the use of complex wordage. I am my mother's child and my brother's sister; I had little issue deciphering the mage-jargon he used liberally and at will. Oros had been close to the mark in his previous assessment of the _geas_, which was used to limit or avert a certain kind of behavior, as opposed to forcing someone to act in a certain way. The penalty for attempted rebellion against the outlines of the _geas_ varied depending on the affected person and degree of transgression, likely something that arose out of their very soul - something like a sense of lightning-shock, perhaps, or the temporary affliction of blindness or deafness. In my case, were I to agree, the _geas_ would be set in place to prevent my physically harming any Elyos true to Ariel Lady of Light ("Except in defense of your own safety, of course," Taion hastened to add, moderating our conversation with a gentle hand) and, set beneath a seamless illusion of Elyos nobility, would be entirely unnoticed if my motives in defection were sincere.

There were several caveats, of course, and I spotted them even as he spoke, but that Taion did not seek to shackle my mind, only potentially betraying hands, was grimly encouraging. I could plot and think all I wanted, it seemed, so long as I never acted upon the impulse. I was struck again by how odd this all was, how strange that a Prince of a noble bloodline would go _so_ far out of his way to cultivate, turn and protect an Asmodian who was little more than a scribe in his service, and no informant at all; and though that bothered me somewhat, it puzzled me a great deal more that even with Terekai Nameless before me (surely he knew who I was, surely there was no chance he could be so blind, I could not have been wrong in my initial appraisal) Taion Helios showed no signs of being aware of that terrible secret. Was the young lord so impulsive, then, that Asmodian prisoners of war followed him home on a regular basis, so much so that his own Daevas were well-used to the practice?

By the time Terekai had reached the end of his expounding, Kit had moved from the hearth to stand at the window, Trist was drowsing among the pillows, and Nico had scooted across the pillow-pit to sit behind Kiert and braid his loose blonde mane. Taion had not moved, still smiling faintly, still kneading Solana's great furry head with sure motions. Oros had turned sidelong to poke at the coals in the hearth, his angular face in profile, black eyes calm. I glanced at them all - honey-skinned Nico with her bright hair and mismatched eyes, death-pale Oros, ivory-complected Kit - and wondered, briefly, what I would look like if I accepted this strange and frightening bargain.

I also wondered, lingeringly and with sudden needless anxiety, that once I wore the mask of an Elyos, how long it would take for the mask to become the truth.

_Ah, but Jaya Azhdeen is dead,_ a voice in my mind reminded me, canny and cutting. _There is no reason to maintain that vanity now._

And that in itself was a painful revelation, but one that I would have to accept.

"How is it done?" I asked at last, having skirted the issue long enough, but Terekai shook his head.

"I cannot tell you, under pain of Ariel's punishment. Only provide me with some touchstone, some item to provide the focus, and I will take care of the rest."

I began to say that I had nothing to provide him, nothing save the clothes on my back in which I was captured, but that was not entirely truthful; my coraline lay twined round my throat, the jade beads warmed by my skin and suddenly heavy as a pillory, and I found that the fingers of my left hand had crept up to brush the fob-pendant at the cup where my collarbones met, one side scratched, the other etched with duelling kestrels. Activity paused in that tower-top room, and the wandering eyes and attentions of the Daevas (save Trist, who was sound asleep) were suddenly focused upon me. I could still renege at the last second, I knew; if my courage faltered, Kit if no one else would stand for me, and I saw the confirmation of it on her face, her brow creased in worry and electric eyes filled with unease. But I would not run away, not from a bargain I myself had made, or walked into. I was not a coward.

Or at least I would have liked to think so.

Before I lost my nerve, I unwrapped the coraline from around my neck, coiling the jade beads in my palm, where they sat warm and heavy and slightly oily from the sweat on my skin. Terekai extended a hand for them, and I held them over his fingers, hesitating briefly; before I could abandon the cause entirely, I said, "The coraline mean much to me, and I will never forgive you, should you shatter them in this fool's endeavor," as I placed them in his hand. He folded his fingers over them, gently, reverently, as if he understood. Perhaps he did. But whether or not he felt the weight of such a gesture on my part was irrelevant, for as soon as I had passed them to his keeping, Trist was reawakened, Solana was left alone on the hearth to pout at the loss of her lord, and the Daevas all came to stand in a loose circle about myself and Terekai, as if this had been pre-instructed, or rehearsed.

I eyed their feet, eyed the windows, noted how they stood in pairs in the cardinal directions - Taion east, Nico west, Kiert north and Trist south, still rubbing his eyes - while Kit and Oros flanked Terekai at either shoulder, the sorcerer looking particularly grave. Some shadow had fallen about his open features and cyan eyes, like a cloud that crosses the sun. "I will be most meticulous," he said without looking at me, pooling the coraline in both hands, the septagonal fob slipping to swing at the end of the threaded cord and spin like a coin on a tabletop. Scratches and kestrels, trading illusions. "Brothers, sisters, the circle, if you please."

The four anchors at the compass points (for I recognized them now as that, the anchors of a protective circle, to focus and contain the aether Terekai prepared to work) lifted their hands and linked them, Nico to Kiert to Taion to Trist, and I saw that wisps of hair had begun to lift and float freely from Nico's blue mane, from Kiert's blonde bangs. I felt it the moment the circle came into being, queer knowledge as when someone has shut all doors and windows in an inner room of a vast and fortified keep; before my eyes I saw the depressions in the air become a rainbow of iridescent color, the shadows sharpening, symbols marching in tiered and spinning rings around and beyond and through the linked Daevas, their eyes shut, their wills unified. Their aether built like the storm on the eastern horizon, humming and alive, a thing that first leapt around me and then along my skin - I knew them all, the eastern wind that heralded spring, the flames of the south that both adored and devoured, the bitterest northern snows, and the earthen pillars of the western mountains. They danced and searched and flowed together until the streams of their auras were indistinguishable from one another, and when they judged the barrier strong enough, Kit and Oros knelt at Terekai's back, arms across each other's shoulders, a mutual support system, though for what I was not sure.

"Last chance - rock, paper, scissors," said Oros under his breath; I was unsure to whom it was directed, but I heard Kit's strained chuckle in reply, and then their own auras breathed to life, wreathing Kit in golden mist and Oros in silver shadow, beautiful and unearthly, a sight meant for no mortal. Their free hands clasped Terekai's shoulders, and down their arms their aether flowed, the sorcerer's own life-essence rising to their cast, a pure white flame that rippled and shimmered, billowed and swelled. The combined aetheric force of seven Daevas pounded at the inside of my temples, made my eyes tremble and pulse in their sockets, made the blood flow sluggishly in my veins, made time stretch and lengthen, every blink a century, every breath the rise and fall of empires. Down Terekai's form I watched that fire glide, cascading across his shoulders and down his chest and arms to lick hungrily at his hands, at my coraline. It circled the jade as a serpent does a lover, with utter, mistrusting caution and the assurance of coiled power, until it fell upon the beads, seemingly to consume them whole.

I cried out in dismay, and Terekai Nameless's cyan eyes snapped upward to my face, white flames dancing behind his irises. I was afraid, terribly afraid, not just of the destruction of my coraline but of the flames he wore wreathed about him like laurel-vines, of the translucent ghosts of brilliant, fiery wings that skirted sight just beyond the line of his shoulders. The aether drew me, repulsed me, and rooted in place I could not move, not even as Terekai came to his knees and shoved his hands forward, as if to throw the fire nested in his palms across my frozen form. I managed to lift an arm, a useless reflex to shield myself the flames, but his hands darted instead to my neck, fingers and coraline and aetheric fire contacting my mortal flesh all at once -

Agony.

I have no words to describe what it is, to be made a plaything of the aether and Aion's will. There are those who have tried to describe it, the sensation when mortal mind is exposed to the workings of the immortal, even for the briefest of moments; I have read their works, explored their prose in detail, and if they fail in their task, it is only because the goal is an impossible one to achieve.

Pain, searing and eternal, blotted out the world until there was nothing but the flames and the anguish of my flesh, and Terekai's hands loose around my throat, a circle that I floated within forever, unable to anchor myself and unable to relinquish to the darkness. _Aion,_ I prayed once more, unable to scream, my own mind being eaten away into madness, _Aion, help me -_

And then it was over, and I was huddled in a tiny ball on the carpeted floor, whimpering and weeping, every nerve raw as if my skin had been sandpaper-scraped from my bones. The Helios prince had indeed warned me that it would not be pleasant, but that, I was finding now, was an understatement of criminal proportions. The circle broke - I felt it distantly as the aether-barrier was dispersed, like a ring of smoke into night air - and then there was a cacophony of voices, lyrical and too-loud. My senses scrambled, I could not understand them, flopped my head back and forth in the brightness in an attempt to focus upon the blurred shapes that moved and whirled before me and above me.

Hands on my shoulders, and the worg pelt's softness brushed my cheek.

"Let her sleep," I heard one of them say, and then I was lifted up, floating in a cocoon of silver fur; I made a noise of agreement in my throat, shut my eyes against the light, and let the healing darkness claim me.


	12. Chapter 12

**Part II: The Furiae**

"The livelong day, there's a voice in my cry,  
Growing like fire, brings scorn to my smile,  
Time lengthens the night and shortens the day,  
The ghosts I host don't seem to go away."

_- Day For Ghosts, Delain._

I came awake slowly, filtering upwards through the stages of dreaming like a deep-dwelling fish floats lazily towards the surface, in no real hurry to achieve the end result of the journey; I heard the rain pelting the slate tiles overhead, the howl of the wind outside, and felt no immediate need to rise from my nest of pillows and furs, warm and comfortable, every ache of my body soothed by sleep. When the thought entered my empty mind that my room had no slate tiles upon which the rain could chatter against, and that the wind had never sounded so keen and hungry on the outer ramparts, I sat up and rubbed my eyes, and remembered all at once the events of the previous night. Hesitantly, I looked at my own hands, half-expecting that it all should have been a dream.

Pale, scar-striped hands greeted my gaze, with long fingers, sword-calluses softened by a month of scholar's work, and short, blunt, white-tipped _nails_.

It seems such a small and silly thing, in the light of all else I had abandoned in the quest to continue breathing, but it was a momentous shock at the time, to realize that my hands had been stripped of the claws I had had my entire young life. I ran my thumb over my fingertips and found that I could not feel the claws even when I attempted to flex them, purposefully seeking the slashing points as a tactile reminder that they yet remained. When I could not find them, I threw off the blankets in a flurry until I could uncover my feet, and saw that my toes too had been converted, much to my dismay. The strange corpse-whiteness of my skin remained consistent along my legs and arms, and I stared for long moments at the change, feeling as though I were an amputee, numbed by the unexpected loss of my claws. I had not even considered the necessity of such a thing until now, when it was far, far too late.

"Are you alright, Jaya?"

Kit, in her white work-gown, seated at a small desk near the open east window; I found my worg pelt among my coverings and pulled it about me, burgundy handprints and all, remaining where the Daevas had lain me on the floor at the base of the rose-quartz hearth. "I am in no pain," I said, and my own voice seemed wan and tremulous, my vision blurring unexpectedly as I struggled to cope.

"That is not what I asked," said Kit, and she rose to pace over and kneel before me, eyes made large with concern, one hand held forward as if she wished to place a palm on my shoulder through compassion, but did not dare to. I moved initially to wave her off in dismissal, lost in quiet shock, but instead I took her hand in mine, found her electric eyes, forced her image to come into an almost too-sharp focus. "I need a mirror."

She looked grim, her lips pressed briefly into a thin white line, her earring-chimes stilled and silent. "I thought you might. Nico?"

"On it," I heard from my right, and turned my head to see that Nico was in the process of unwrapping an oblong object held fast in thick brown paper, and that an elaborately-carved cedar chest had been added to the tower room sometime in the night. The male Daevas were nowhere in evidence, blessedly, and Solana sat guard at the upper landing of the stair against their unannounced intrusion, pink tongue lolling from her mouth, tail flicking sedately. Seeing the spirit-beast, I looked instantly to Kit, who anticipated my question and smiled in reassurance. "Sathas is well as can be expected. Do not trouble yourself for his condition; he is resting in the infirmary, though I daresay he will be asleep for a bit longer yet. Half of our mortal guardsmen volunteered to guard him - he is well-liked, and there is no shortage of protectors for him."

"Or of vengeful blades, if Oros can figure out who his attacker called master," added Nico, tearing and throwing paper with great gusto. The object she unwrapped resolved itself into a full-length ladies' mirror, delicate scrollwork carved around its outer edges, and clearly of great worth to have been so royally treated against so much as the barest scratch on its frame. The base was oval, solid wood and appeared immensely heavy, and I did not envy the task of those who had manhandled it up the strange square steps. Nico, the sleeves of her oversized golden tunic rolled past the elbows and her legs clad only in loose crimson breeches that reached to the knee, stood to examine her handiwork, and possibly herself in the mirror. "But we'll get to that in a moment." She turned on a heel to grin at us. "Care to have a look, Jaya?"

I had no words for her, only a nod, the mirror set at such an angle from where I sat that I would not see my own reflection until I chose to step before it. I tugged gently at Kit's hand clasped in mine, and she drew me to my feet in a smooth motion, a common display of her power; I let the worg pelt remain on the carpet where I had been, and with hobbling steps (my bandages were loose about my leg, and the air across the scars there felt keen and cold as needles) I walked toward Nico and the mirror, leaving Kit's hand behind as I moved forward on my own. Nico stepped aside, lightly and with a smile, but I saw anxiety in her mismatched eyes as sure as I had seen it on Kit's face, saw her chew her lower lip as she turned away.

I hesitated an eternity at the threshold while fear, poisonous and paralytic, seeped into my bones. But then the warrior in me lifted her proud head and decried, _It is only an illusion, and illusions hold nothing to fear._

_It is not the illusion itself that I am afraid of,_ I noted quietly, but the mirror and its quiet elegance called me, whispered to me; I had to know, for in my willing captivity, knowledge was the last strength left to me, the only power that I could hold among a group of Aion's chosen. I stepped forward, feeling naked as a newborn babe.

Terekai's work had not been unimpressive. The scars at my leg and shoulder remained, ivory lines in alabaster flesh peeking through cloth and linen, and my hair was yet the colour of raspberries, my irises quicksilver, my features an echo of my exalted mother. But in spite of (or perhaps because of) the similarities, the woman in the mirror seemed all the more strange, exotic and alien, a person that I could not immediately accept as myself, so different was she from my normal perception. My eyes had changed subtly, larger in my face, my cheekbones slightly higher, my lips redder, the points at my ears slanted to an angle more appropriate an Elyos. My shoulders were yet broad, but the bones there and at my other joints were finer, sharper, the muscles less bulk and more refined, coiled strength. And I was pale, moreso than Kit, or Oros, or any other Elyos I had seen - white as Mishuvel or whiter, my skin translucent in places. I could see the blueness of the arteries pulsing beneath my coraline, returned to my throat by Terekai, the fob and opposing jade beads fused together that the necklace it formed could not be removed save by its destruction. The duelling falcons on the septagonal fob would be forever frozen at the cup of my collarbones, a tactile anchor to who and what I was.

In disbelief, I lifted my hand to touch my own face, watching myself in the mirror, uncertain if I should feel elated or incredibly depressed that Terekai's illusion had cast me in such a favourable light. The Elyos wield beauty as a weapon, it is true; I discovered with a start that that weapon was one that I had now inherited, all unwittingly and unaccustomed. Raised to the sword and to a way of thinking in which loveliness of form was rarely a factor, I had not considered myself beautiful before that moment - but staring at that white shadow of me, an Asmodian turned Elyos, I could not help but wonder, and wonder again if such had been planned from the beginning.

A moot point, now. I shook my head stiffly, causing my haphazard mane to fly in several directions at once, and tried a smile in the mirror. I so closely resembled my mother, and brother, with that smirk upon my face that I had little choice to to accept what I saw before me, strange though it was. Like learning the treachery inherent in my own lame leg, it would take practice, and need some getting used to. The spell was broken when Nico said, from the side, "You're right, Kit, I should copy that style of dress, it looks very comfortable," and I remembered once again that I yet wore the ragged, bloodstained and scandalous half-gown, the hem dusting the tops of my thighs and somehow more obscene than if I had been truly naked. This time, I had no qualms about covering myself with my hands, and I frowned petulantly at Kit and Nico as the pair of them burst into fits of heady feminine giggles. "Oh, come off it, Jaya!" Nico grinned. "We've got some actual clothes for you, and while you're dressing we can even talk shop, if you like."

"The chest," said Kit in stage-whisper, and with an impotent glare for Nico, I stalked over to the aforementioned trunk and knelt to open it and rifle its contents, my calf protesting beneath me until I could adjust position for its complaints. "The both of you are horrid," I grumped, plunging elbow-deep into the nest of fabric, and while I searched for something suitable, Kit took up a seat at the low-burning hearth. Nico snatched up my first hastily-discarded selection (a garish blue and gold confection with more sleeves than petticoats) and held it up to her own dimunitive form, prancing before the mirror like a little girl playing dress-up with her mother's clothing.

"Now _this_ is truly dreadful," she laughed, one hand holding up a heavily-embroidered sleeve. "Did you ever actually _wear_ it, Kit?"

"Twice," said the Chantress, contriving to sound miserable even though her face bore merriment. "'Twas the style at court, a century and a half ago."

Nico scrunched her nose at her reflection. "Barely worth eviscerating for the fabric, really."

"Don't you dare," Kit admonished, her easy laughter taking the sting out of the sentiment. "That awful gown is older than you are! I should donate it to some tailor's college, to be put on display and gawked at by young student tradesmen, who haven't any idea what their forebears endured."

"A monument to historic lack of taste?" I noted from the floor before the cedar trunk, and while Kit laughed, Nico twirled before the mirror, humming an unfamiliar waltz. The conversation was lively enough, but more than that, I had learned an important clue regarding my pair if Daeva companions; while I had long ago surmised that Kit was the elder of them, I now knew that she had been active at the court for perhaps two centuries or more, while Nico had been born a touch more recently. Digging through the chest as I contemplated this, I came upon another court reject, a brassy scarlet number with frills and a _very_ daring neckline. "Oh, surely _this_ one never saw combat on the fields of the high court," I drawled, and Kit squawked as Nico drifted over, to aid me in lifting it up for a full inspection. "It seems more suited to combat in the boudoir."

"Why, Ketterine Delainne!" the little shrike laughed, discarding the blue-and-gold monstrosity for the crimson one, which, due to the vast tracts of fabric missing from strategic places, rather resembled a wedding-cake after the handfasting ceremony has been completed: more racy fluff than substance, with what was left indelicately exposed to all and sundry that cared to look. "I had no idea you were so _flashy_ once upon a time!"

"_Now_ who is horrid, Jaya?" pouted Kit, mirth dancing in the depths of her impossibly blue eyes. "And before you ask, Nico, _no_, I never did wear that one. It was a... _well-intentioned,_ but entirely misaimed gift from an admirer in my youth."

"Such a tactful young man," smirked Nico. "Interested in just the _one_ thing, I would think, and it wasn't your flexible _mind_."

"It can likely be altered to fit you, Nico," I noted, which received raucous laughter from the shrike, and another, more indignant noise from the peregrine. "Truly, Kit, where did you find such a collection of misfits? Did you simply snatch up the first chest you could haul from your closet?"

"Something like that," Nico grinned impishly, but Kit chuckled and shook her head. "I had meant to find you a gown of a style that had not been seen in court for quite some time. The younger Daevas and mortal courtiers will not know, and the elder may not remember, though if they do it can be accredited to the sloth with which trend travels to the outer reaches. I would pass you off as a daughter of country gentry, of noble blood but little dowry. Perhaps heiress to a minor barony or the like."

"Pass me off? To whom?" I could not help the suspicion that leaked into my tones, but Kit's smile merely widened and took on an aspect of mischief.

"Why, the High Court, of course. Such a work as you have been bestowed is meant to be admired!" Forward came the peregrine to kneel beside me at the chest, picking up this gown and that dress, setting one riot of silks and colour after another to the side for Nico to squeal over, the scarlet abomination abandoned.

"Is that the fate that Taion Helios has planned for me, then?" I asked, sitting back on my left thigh, watching in an almost disconnected state as the High Chantress so merrily sought through her old things for something appropriate to my form. "An Elyos courtier with an Asmodian mind?"

"Truth be told," Nico said sidelong, leaning over to join the conversation and browse amongst the 'treasures' found in the cedar chest, "not a damn one of us knows what Tai's got planned. For any of us, or for the Furiae as a whole. Oh!" This last came as Kit withdrew a length of grey-green cloth, which Nico promptly snatched up, that the three of us might see it held in the rain-dimmed sunlight. It was a fine, old-fashioned court gown, from a time when flat chests were fashionable and the overly-endowed turned to corsetry to aid them; square-necked, cap-sleeved and inset with ivory panels at the skirt, dancing griffins were picked out in white embroidery along the trim. "Jay, you _must_ try this one. It may even fit your _assets_ in the front," she teased, and made me roll my eyes.

"Are there no trousers at all amongst your wardrobe?" I said in bland tones to Kit, approaching exasperation with gowns and frills and fripperies, though the grey-green dress was enticing even to my sensibilities. Kit grinned her crooked, endearing smile and said, "Only my battle-armor, and to wear that to court as a noble-blooded Daeva is frowned upon during times of peace."

"_Relative_ peace, anyway," shrugged Nico. Given the little shrike's penchant for bare skin accessorized with choice bits of armor and weaponry, I had surmised that she was most decidedly not of noble birth, even if her slangy and loose manner of speech had not already hinted at precisely that. "Up with you, Jaya, let's get you dressed." They aided me to my feet, an ungainly process made easier through practice, and I managed to gracefully accept their steadying touches at my shoulders when my knee trembled and threatened to rebel; the nightgown came off, destined for the ragpile, and the dress went on over my head, Kit's expert hands guiding the folds to their proper places. In the mirror, the grey-green silk made my raspberry hair seem to burn like fire, made the whiteness of my skin ethereal. For one precious moment, I forgot utterly about the ache in my leg and the hidden motives for everyone around me, and just _was_, marvelling that I should wear this form among the Elyos public.

"Nico, find me the hairbrush, if you please," Kit said mildly, fiddling with the laces that the bodice pressed vise-tight to my torso, hugging and enhancing what curves I had. I was beginning to think that Kit and Nico took entirely too much pleasure in dressing me up, at least until the Chantress said, "I would hardly throw you out amongst the wolves without some sense of familiarity, Jaya. Would you like to see the city?"

"Do I have anything to fear from it?" I asked, and Kit smiled from over my shoulder, a slight tension about her eyes visible in the mirror. "Oros has uncovered nothing yet, I am afraid; we were not so lucky that the man in your room should have left some obvious calling-card with which to identify his master. However, at this juncture, I think that a public display will do more for your safety than any number of dark-eyed Assassins."

"Jaya is a very plain name, even for minor nobility, though," Nicolette remarked as she waded hip-deep through a sea of fabric, ostensibly searching for the missing comb. "And Ajdin? Azhdeen? However the hell you say it, it's unheard of, this side of the Abyss."

"Jaeyarithi, then, and no family name until court introductions. It is appropriately pompous and cumbersome," smiled Ketterine gently, "to explain the short use-name. Objections?" Kit said, finishing with the laces and kneeling to tug the folds of the skirts into place. I tilted my head and stared again at myself in the mirror, watching Elyos-me's silver eyes narrow, studying the lines of her strange/familiar face.

"It will do for our purposes," I sighed. _Our_ purposes, I had intentionally reminded us; it was not to be done, failing to note that I had brought this upon myself. "Shall I avoid all contact with my curious public, like some bashful country maiden?"

"The veil of modesty is not one you wear well," smirked Kit, one silver gull's-wing brow playfully arched. "With luck, we will remain unapproached until your cover can be further refined, and neatly avoid the problem altogether." Nico at last came up with the hairbrush, hidden, of course, at the bottom of the chest, in the way that such things always orchestrate themselves in such a manner as to be as annoying as possible; she lobbed it to Kit, who took all things in stride, smoothing my mane into some semblance of order while Nico stuffed dresses haphazardly back into their cedar container. Kit's laugh was low, quiet and infectious as she tamed my raspberry locks. "Ah, the irony! Not so long ago, we were discussing the horrors of taking you to court - and here I am, preparing you for precisely that."

"Be careful what you wish for," I grumbled, which made the pair of them laugh; Nico finished her chore, the dresses balled into one great big knot of fabric and compressed sufficiently that the chest's clasps met, if barely, and then she was on her feet and at the landing, flopping down atop the steps to pet Solana and pull on a pair of house-shoes. "Slippers alright, Jay? Nothing _fanciful_ today, we're just a few lady-friends taking a walk." She straightened her back as she said it, modulated her tones in mimicry of Kit, the inflections so spot-on that I was startled into laughter.

"Ah! Cheeky little shrike," laughed the High Chantress, and the three of us, once appropriately preened, shoed and dressed, began the long descent down the stone stair, our feet trailing runes in their wake. Kit and Nico went before me, forgetting for a moment that my leg was a treacherous and fickle thing; I nearly fell headfirst at the step before the first landing, but Solana, stout and lovely creature, leaned her shoulder into my right hip, shoring me up with her weight and allowing me to fist a hand in her thick ruff that my equilibrium remained uncompromised. What would have been a nasty fall quickly became a mere stumble, and I kept the grip in her soft fur, the pair of us descending in tandem all the way to the bottom of the square staircase. "Aion bless you," I breathed, and Solana snorted and rumbled, her tongue lolling briefly in that elemental's grin as we click-clacked and staggered down the tower.

Awaiting us at the bottom of the stair, across the runed threshold, was a shift of the guard that had brought me here, Kryson missing from their number; I hoped the man had gotten some sleep, so stricken and shocked he had seemed after Sathas had been brought low by my assailant. A handful of men detached from the regiment to play escort, trailing in our shadows, and once upon level ground Kit and Nico fell back, that I walked between them, peregrine at my right hand and shrike at my left. Solana fell back as well, but only a step, and she kept her head level with my palm, butting her skull up into my fingers in quiet demand of affection. I happily obliged her as we walked, her tail flicking behind us, warding off the guards when they drew a touch too near for comfort.

Through the halls we went, a pack of women three abreast, our ardent guard trailing at our heels like puppies, or like two-legged versions of Solana, quiet but irreverent of our privacy. When we emerged onto a covered rampart-balcony, for it was yet raining in Elysea, it was on a side of the keep that I had yet to see, a northerly view that afforded me a sweeping panorama of Sanctum and its roads, and somewhat of the landscape beyond. I bear no shame in admitting that I was awestruck by the sight of it even veiled in cold drizzle, moved by the soaring towers, the banners whipping in the storm-winds, the statue-gardens that liberally dotted the main thoroughfares, keeping the populace in touch with its history. The sky was white with clouds, the sun masked, the light yet dim enough that I might soak in everything my mortal eyes could touch, and I say this, for those of you who have never seen the shining Elyos capital in all its glory: I weep for you. Pandaemonium may be Aion's dark and laughing beauty, the shadowy mistress with the mysterious smile, but Sanctum is the stark and imposing jewel in the crown of all Atreia.

My Asmodian soul was deeply touched by it, even as I became so very aware of how little I belonged here.

"It's lovely," I said automatically, moving immediately to the rain-speckled railing - I remembered, swiftly and against my will, of being thrown against a similar rail, but this balcony was not exposed to the elements, and the sun yet shone overhead, if through layers of clouds. Kit and Solana bracketed me at the rail, just out of a curtain of rain, whilst Nico hoisted herself up on the strength of her forearms, swinging her feet, unable to care less about the consequences should she fall, in pure Daeva fashion. On the tier below the balcony lay a courtyard, sheltered from rain by vast tracts of sheer white fabric draped across the manicured treetops, obscuring the movements of small groups of people on the pathways below; I peered downwards at them, somewhat apprehensive despite my curiosity, and saw a few pale or honey-toned faces sneaking idle glances upwards through the leaves. "Ah, count upon the irrepressible Lady Vrei," Kit smirked, leaning almost lazily against the rail, "not to allow such a thing as a little bit of rain to interrupt her annual garden-party."

I thought I saw spectres of blue flame, caged aether-lights dotting the stone paths beneath the trees, and heard the quiet strains of subdued music underneath the patter of rain on the courtyard's cloth-roof. Slowly, more and more faces turned heavenwards, as apparently news of our observaton spread amongst the party-goers. "Seems an awful lot of expense for a party."

"Vrei's got more money than sense," Nico noted, "but when a Daeva her age says jump, most of the others say how high."

"That is a very unfair appraisal, Nico," laughed Kit, though she did not deny it, nor defend the absent Lady Vrei. Nico rolled her eyes and cast her gaze down the corridor, smiling flirtatiously with the guards; it only took a breath, however, for all the cheer to go out of her form. "Don't look now," she hissed, teeth grit, "but we have company."

Kit flicked a look over her shoulder, assuming a mask of friendly, smiling beauty as she did so, but her words were irritable whispers. "Didn't take _him_ long, did it?"

A clatter of bootsteps rang across the marble, and I turned away from that heart-wrenchingly beautiful panorama to glance back, against Nico's advice, the way we had come. Clad in closely-tailored burgundy leathers and striding up the corridor was an Elyos nobleman, long auburn hair pulled back in a high pony, his wolfish face handsome - or at least it would have been if his left eye had not been clawed out at some point in the past, the empty socket replaced by a slick mass of pale scar-tissue, leaving its cobalt-blue mate bereft. He was tall, frowning a hunter's grimace, but the momentary look of displeasure was smoothed away as a roguish smirk overtook his sharp features, stepped forward fearlessly as the ranks of our escort parted and eddied about, autumn leaves before a gale. "Lady Delainne. What a pleasure to discover you here! I was told you would be indisposed until afternoon bells." He stepped close, a half-step between the Chantress and I, and I found myself with the small of my back pressed to the railing in the need to avoid touching him.

"Lord Beltaine," smiled Kit, her manner alien now, a creature of the court and its poisonous words, "you have me at rather the disadvantage. As you can see, I am entertaining a guest."

"Ah, yes," and Beltaine turned that cobalt eye upon me, and though his manner was smooth and gentlemanly, the careful judgment in the depths of his single iris was anything but. "The mysterious poetess. Is the great work finished, then, that you have at last deigned to show your lovely face to Aion's children?"

"Liath, what ill manners," laughed Kit, a chest-deep, head-turning laugh that I had not heard her use before, "you've yet to be introduced, and already so presumptuous as to question after her masterwork!" He hung his head briefly in shame, a gesture meant to make us smile, and I obliged, though in as bland and flimsy a manner as I felt I could get away with. Nico did not even bother, I saw from the corner of my eye, instead crossing her legs at the knee, elbow upon her thigh and chin in her palm, watching the proceedings and glaring evil little daggers into Beltaine's heart.

"You have the right of it, of course, Ketterine. How could I have been so remiss?" A step back, then, and into a courtly bow he went. "I am known, in short form address, as High General of the Legio Fidelis, Grand Duke Liath Beltaine, of House Beltaine. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." I had not failed to denote the shift of address from formal to personal, once Kit had so casually used his name; had I the luxury of time, I would have huffed and rolled my eyes, for I have never had patience for courtly politics and protocol. That had always been Raum's forte, not mine - and thought of Raum in that moment steeled me, made my back ramrod-straight and my carraige graceful. I would not fail here, when so far I had come, but neither would I play the part of the diffident maiden, fresh from the outer reaches of Elysea.

"You dazzle me, sir, far beyond my ability," I smiled. I was in that moment thankful, for the first and only time, that I had not yet the opportunity to completely rid myself of my Carcarrese brogue - for that slight accent gave my speech the impression of country nobility, my vowels soft, consonants rounded, sybillants gentled. "Is it not presumptuous in and of itself, for one of my station to converse so casually with one of yours?"

"Only if the overtures are made without proper chaperone, I would think, which we are fortunate to have in the form of Ketterine," smirked Beltaine, intrigued, and with a look to the shrike said, "Be not so inhospitable of spirit, Nicolette! One would think you hold a grudge against my lordly person."

"The oaths I swore don't bind me into being _nice_, Beltaine," Nico growled in response; I had never seen her in such stormy mood, and the strangeness of her reaction to Beltaine seemed especially odd when I thought upon the fact that Nico happily flirted hither and yon with all things male within the city walls. Solana moved from my side to Nico's and sat upon her haunches, pinning her ears back flat to her great skull and flipping her cirrus-tail over her toes, as if she felt she needed to officiate, should the Gladiator leap forward for Beltaine's throat. "You leave the poor girl alone. _Her_ business is none of _yours_."

"So prickly, Dame Sethes," said Beltaine, unphased by her rudeness. I gained the impression that this feud was one of long standing between Nico and the Grand Duke. "I will leave it up to the young lady whether or not my attentions are merited."

"You will do nothing of the sort," said another, more familiar voice, emanating from Liath Beltaine's wake; calm and cold, there down the corridor came striding Oros, as bedecked with weapons as ever, his leathers a clean-cut set of blue and white that I had never seen - formal wear, I later supposed, for an Assassin who was never truly off duty. His hair was combed more neatly than his wont, his scowl dark, but his eyes even darker. The gyre was not pleased to find what he sought here - though whether that was Beltaine, or myself, or both, I was unsure. "You are asked after by Vaisel Lord of Freedom, Lord Beltaine, in the Cerulean Hall, concerning your latest assignment. I assured him you would report there _immediately_."

"Ah, the mighty Ourobouros," drawled Beltaine, turning on a heel to face the gyre, clearly unimpressed. Nico, much to my and Kit's consternation, lifted her hands and made evil faces at his back while it was turned, careful to stay within the considerable blind spot afforded her by his missing eye. "Playing courier now for the Lords Seraphim? How unlike you, to stoop to being their messenger-boy."

"And you, my lady," said Oros, pointedly staring past Beltaine as if he had not spoken at all, to address _me_, of all people, "are asked after by Ariel Lady of Light. Would you be so kind as to accompany me to her private chambers?" An extended hand, palm up, the gesture of a gentleman and no Assassin; his hand was gloved, though I knew there were clever fingers beneath the leather, callused like that of his war-trained allies, unbelievably strong. All banter came to an abrupt halt at the asking of that unexpected question - not even Kit had foreseen such a move of Oros, and I saw from the corner of my eye as her eyebrows slowly rose, a crooked smile breaking dawn on her face. I, like Kit, could not help but appreciate how neatly Oros had derailed what would have otherwise been a long and costly entanglement, with an excuse the strange Elyos could scarcely refute. Beltaine turned (Nico dropped her hands and wiped clean the silly expressions crost her face) to stare at me, cobalt eye appraising anew, and I had little choice but to place my hand in Oros's gloved one and smile graciously. His fingers were icy even beneath the covering, though his manner was nothing less than exemplary as he drew me away from Beltaine, my hand moved to his arm and Kit moved to cover our escape. My limp could not be disguised for long, or well, but her misdirection aided me in hiding it for the moment.

"Another time, perhaps, Lord Beltaine; is there some trouble at your House that I am unaware of? I have long awaited your promised invitation to dine," Kit smiled, tarrying a moment with the stranger to distract him, and smooth over any ruffled feathers, a game to which Beltaine submitted most reluctantly, attempting to watch Oros and I unobtrusively as we made our exit. Nico hopped down from the railing, and Solana trotted ahead of us down the corridor, while Oros played the part of perfect gentleman with my hand on his arm, such that as we passed among the ranks the faces of our own guards were at points perplexed, at points outright surprised. I felt no less shocked, glancing at the gyre's impassive face, uncertain what his game was but unable to inquire while yet within earshot of Liath Beltaine. He marched purposefully through the halls, his hawkish visage seemingly made of stone, and within minutes Kit and Beltaine were left far behind, Nico growling to herself at our rear, Solana for a vanguard. My leg ached and throbbed deep in the muscle, complaining of the weather and its harsh treatment, and with a will I worked the knee and calf even harder, refusing to give in to their petty demands. The silence between us all stretched on into infinity, broken only by the sound of boots on the marble floor, the jingle of mail and weapons slung about their owners, and Solana's canine nails, clickety-clacking across the flagstones.

"I believe this belongs to you," Oros said after some time, drawing from his breast pocket a familiar, slender volume bound in red leather. My hands immediately flew to it, practically snatching it from his grasp, and my heart surged to a mad tinker's time as I opened it and quickly scanned its contents. The Lay was practically unharmed, much to my utter relief, save for a few scratches across the cover and a small nick at the very back of the folio, leaving the body of script untouched. Once I had fully ascertained that the precious manuscript had escaped the ruination of my quarters, I pressed it to my heart, the cover still warm from his body and smooth against the exposed skin of my upper chest. "My rooms?" I prompted, lifting my brows to give it more subtle meaning, but Oros shook his head, looking wary, almost hunted.

"A lost cause at best. It is a matter which Lady Ariel will address." I paused at that, fell a half-step behind Oros, was forced to practically hop forward in order to catch up. Solana, who was rapidly earning her way into my best graces, fell back as well to provide me a steady shoulder with which to brace, though due to Oros standing at my right hand, it was unfortunately on the wrong side to allow for swift egress. "You _were_ jesting, about Ariel?" I choked out, and Oros stared at me as if I had grown a second head, at least until I could resume a hobbling clip. Clearly, one does not jest about Ariel in the heart of her own city.

"Of course not. I thought to find you still in Terekai's tower, but I found that _a certain few_ had preempted me," he said, annoyance giving his clear tenor a slight growl to it, and he glanced over his shoulder to meet eyes with Nico, who was quickly recovering her good cheer now that she had been removed from the presence of Liath Beltaine. "And I'm lucky I found you when I did. That man is no one to be trifled with." That last was, ostensibly, directed to me, but his black eyes were still on Nico's face when he spoke it, and she lifted her chin and scrunched up her nose in distaste.

"The look on his face _alone_ was worth it," she smirked, eyeteeth in the corners of her mouth, her normal cheer beginning to glitter in the depths of her mismatched irises. Effervescent was an excellent word to describe the shrike; removed from the source of her ire, her naturally bubbly personality soon rose to the fore once again, and while it was an admirable trait, I could not spare the time to appreciate the resilience and fortitude of her psyche.

"Forget Beltaine," I said, scrabbling for mental purchase, and before Nico could provoke Oros into an argument that I scarce had the patience for. "You're taking me to _Ariel's personal chambers?_"

"Is it such a surprise?" said Oros, white brows lifting. "This particular meeting was only a matter of time. I do wish that I had found you before Beltaine had -"

"Getting her _seen_ was part of the plan, though!" Nico wheedled from the rear, and was completely ignored for her trouble, save for a brief pause in Oros's speech.

"- for now rumours will run completely _amok_ in the court, but at least this new gossip should outbreed the bastard children that nearly got you killed," the gyre acceded, turning us left at an intersection and deeper inward of the keep. ("Amok amok amok amok," mumbled Nico to a wandering tune, referencing an amusing children's game that was, at the time, completely lost on me.) "This may even prove an unexpected boon."

"How could this possibly be a _boon?_" I asked, verging on hysterical at the thought of confronting the mistress of the Seraphim, and watching his face as we walked, how his black eyes became empty and cool, less predatory and more immutable the closer we drew to our unseen destination. He answered without glancing at me now, his gaze forward, navigating effortlessly the labyrinthine corridors of the inner portions of Sanctum's most zealously-guarded cloisters. I saw, peripherally, rows of Elyos guards, all immaculately clad in white uniform, at attention at various pale doors and the entrances of stairways and other winding corridors; where the gyre roamed, their ranks parted without so much as a whisper, such that I wondered for a moment if they were illusory golems of some sort, ghosts bound to guard the elite of Sanctum and serve its Daeva rulers. "Well, it is quite difficult for Tai's court detractors to claim that he has been harboring an Asmodian for the last six weeks, when you have been spoken to in person by the largest rat at court, and seen to be nothing of the sort."

I had nothing to say to that, but not because he had won the point; I swiftly became absorbed in quiet, paralytic fear when I spotted a pair of wide wooden doors, cherry heartwood unpainted and polished bright, elaborately carved with a classical scene I recognized immediately as depicting the Cataclysm, the shattering of the Tower and the deaths of two Empyrean Lords. Lady Siel and Lord Israphel stood in stark relief on opposing doors, wings larger, features bolder and more detailed than the other Daevas fighting or fleeing around them, and their faces were peaceful though they faced their mutual deaths. How many had died that day, in that bitter conflict, despite the sacrifices made to ensure the survival of the whole? I knew the numbers, but only as cold facts, lessons taught to schoolchildren, that the same mistake might not be repeated. The carved door, however, served as a grim reminder to me than the being what had sent Oros to summon me forth had known them all - and that in itself was sobering. Despite the fire that burned in me, the desire to _live_ and _know_, that the life in Ariel's veins had flourished there for a thousand years and more, since a time beyond my reckoning. I could even not begin to fathom why I was here, or why she had sent Oros in search of me, or what in the name of Aion I was going to _say_ in the face of something so old, so powerful.

We who associate with the Ascended, the Chosen of Aion, oft forget that we consort daily with small gods. Ariel was another level of being _entirely._

We reached the doors, and the honor-guard stationed there bowed their heads as Oros knocked, the faces of all grave, the sound reverberating as if the cherry doors were hollow-cored. I heard a fluting voice answer, indistinct but welcoming; Oros dared the right-hand door, pushing it inward and slipping inside. I found to my dismay that I could not move, trapped on the threshold, my leg aching, my heart risen into my throat, coherent thoughts torn apart inside my brain the moment they coalesced, like a beast-master throwing meat to a hungry pack of worgs. _Be calm,_ a part of me spoke, but though I heard, I could not listen.

It suddenly seemed a very, _very_ foolish venture, that I should have endeavoured to live, and I wonder to this day that if I had known I would be brought before Ariel wearing the false face of one of her subjects, would I have chosen to die after all.

Solana nosed my hand, an anchor, a solid and real presence that I latched onto gratefully as Nico paced round to my front, smiling tightly. "It's not so bad, Jaya," she whispered, reaching up to smooth my raspberry locks, absently straightening the shoulders of the gown. Her hands were not so clever with such things as Kit, who was born to the courts, but in spite of my distaste for touch I was grateful for that as well, that she should try to make me more presentable. "Keep your chin up. Look her in the eye, if you can. She likes that."

I murmured something to the positive, some platitude I am sure, for I do not entirely remember. My hand was white-knuckled in Solana's fur, Nico an encouraging presence at my side, and the next thing I am aware of, the wind-spirit shouldered open the cherrywood doors, and I was dragged forward with her, else my feet fly out from under me.

Ariel's outer chamber was, at first glance, a small square courtyard, colonnaded and open unto the sky; at a second look, I saw that glass curved gently over the opening to form a translucent roof, now sheeting with rain and murky, making whirls and streaks against the white sky above. Rows of orderly flowers in all colours were arranged about the edges of the court, leafy emerald vines had been coaxed to twine up the columns, and a small three-tiered fountain, perhaps three feet tall and wide, provided the soothing sound of running water to harmonize with the pelting of rain. At the far end of the little court, however, was a plush chair set upon a dais, and it was before this that Oros knelt, head low and neck exposed in true obeisance. To Oros's left and below the dais was set another, much smaller chair, where Taion sat, ankle crossed over a knee, fist pressed to his mouth to hide the beginnings of a grin, though his golden eyes betrayed him in his mirth.

Beyond them and seated in the chair on the dais was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, then or now, and the smile that animated her face could have lit the world, her radiance second only to the Sun itself.

Ah, Aion! How to describe her, the sheer perfection of her every line? I had thought that Kit was beautiful when first faced with her splendour, but every memory I had ever held of beauty paled before the spectre of the Lady of Light. Her essence cannot be placed into mere words, for to do so would be to undermine her and what she is, and if forced to such a trial, I would embrace utter failure with a light heart. And then she spoke, and my world was once again set on its ear, my mortal soul unprepared for full exposure to one of Aion's oldest children.

"Come here, child. We have been waiting for you."

Solana pulled me forward, unrelenting, and with Nico at my back and Ariel beckoning ahead, I had no choice but to go.


	13. Chapter 13

What does one say, when confronted with the sovereign entity of a people whom you have hated your entire life, beautiful and terrifying?

What words would come to your lips, if you found yourself beheld in Ariel's coruscant gaze, saw her beckon with her exquisite hand to draw you into her presence, if she bestowed upon you a smile that was the light of the world? Speech abandoned me, leaving me desolate and alone in an island of stupefaction. Her aura was a far-flung thing and washed over me like a tidal wave, a suffocating, enveloping presence that filled that entire covered court, thick and heavy, like how the cloying scent of roses clings to the nostrils and throbs through the temples. I was dimly aware that a vicious headache awaited me for after I was removed from Ariel's aura; my leg shivered and began to give, the muscles of my calf having reached critical mass, but Solana dragged me forward. For that, I bless the steady heart of the elemental spirits, for without her heedless courage I would not have moved at all, would have let myself collapse upon the perfect stone walkway, unable to wade through the sea of aether that so suddenly assaulted my senses.

The closer we staggered to Ariel, the harder it became, my eyes watering and my throat constricting. The press of aether was so strong that I thought it would break me, I would choke before I reached the dais, my back would shatter and my bones would turn to powder in my flesh. I had the presence of mind to tuck away the Lay in my bodice with my free hand, at least, sure that if I fainted dead away it would be lost forever to me. Then we reached the gyre and the owl, and Solana shook off my hold to sprawl with boneless grace at Taion's feet; I was not so nearly possessed of myself, and tumbled forward to the path next to Oros, palms skidding on the stone as I fought to prevent the ground from rising up to meet my face. His aura was cooler, calmer than Ariel's, a breath of autumn air across sand dunes - and breathing it in, all unexpected my head was clearer, and I was able to arrange my limbs that I might sit formally on my haunches, injured calf twisted out of true, but otherwise appropriately placed beneath my skirt.

It was easier, then, to draw my courage close about myself and lift my chin, to stare Ariel Lady of Light in her endless eyes.

She laughed, delighted, and clapped her hands together, and I found my eyes pulled away from hers, to the curve of her smile, the arc of her fingers, anywhere but her eyes. With Oros's aether clearing my lungs, I saw that the exact angles of her face seemed to change from heartbeat to heartbeat, each facade as perfect as the last, encouraging my gaze to slide away and wander. "It is not often a mortal can stare me in the eye, even briefly," she said, amused, almost proud, in the way a mother preens when her children have exceeded even her own high expectations. "Does your leg bother you, in such a stance?"

I did not expect such a question, and blinking, I answered, "No." I paused; that was too close to a lie to allow it to remain. "No more than it does in any other. I have learned to compensate for my failings."

Her head bobbed in an avid nod, her (now pointed, now rounded, now strong) chin resting atop her fist. "And do you see your wound as such? A failing?"

I blinked again, attempted to regain her eyes. This conversation was not at all going in any way that I could have anticipated. "I am a warrior crippled," I said, doing the best I could to make my voice nonchalant, as if the words held nothing of import. "It is certainly not a thing to be celebrated."

"Accidents happen," said Ariel, gently, so very gently. "A weakness may become great strength, in time. I find that those in my service who have suffered the greatest pains," and here she crossed one long, slender leg over the other at the knee, "are also those with the greatest strength of will." Her eyes scoured me, like cleansing fire raking across my soul, and for a moment I felt flayed to the bone before I could pull my gaze to the safer target of her jaw, focusing on her words, on the lyrical sound of her voice. "Why do you think that is?"

"I am sure I do not know," I said, a courtly answer, a safe answer. Ariel's eyes travelled from me to Taion, who looked upon her visage without fear; my heart seized, I did not know if I should rejoice in the lack of her gaze, or weep for it. The owl folded his hands in his lap and spoke, a welcome distraction, his baritone voice another anchor for me in the sea of Ariel's energy. "If you are going to inflict the timeless _suffering builds character_ lecture upon us all," he grinned, irreverent, unreasonably familiar with this empress of his people, "do keep in mind that court is in little more than four bells, and save Oros, none of us are dressed."

"You are a trial, nephew," smiled Ariel, her eyes (now blue, now green, now grey as the seas) crinkling at the corners. "But the point is well taken. I am of the mind," and her gaze shifted back to me once more, and now that they were focused again upon me I could not fathom their depths or colour, "that those who have suffered the gravest injuries have also overcome the greatest of foes: themselves." She leaned forward in her chair, hair falling about her shoulders and framing her (angled, pixie, heart-shaped) face, and I felt transfixed, pinned by her force of presence alone. "You are an oddity, Jaya Azhdeen, an anomaly under Aion's watchful gaze. This much I know: you were raised to the blade, but also to the scroll. Your arms bear the stripes of a warrior, but your mind bears the knowledge of a scholar. My great-nephew," and she nodded to Taion, who smirked behind his hiding fist, "claims he has placed a _geas_ within you not to harm any of my subjects, save in defense of your own life. This is true?"

"It is," I said, my own voice unaccountably weak, the warble of a newborn bird.

"And yet he has not asked of you to swear oaths of fealty, to my court, or to House Helios, or even to himself and the Furiae. This is also true?"

"It is," I said, and this time it was stronger, my resolve strengthening. She smiled, and it was almost swept away, almost, but for a breath of autumn air. Oros, still kneeling at my side, head still low, the planes at the back of his white neck yet exposed. I was startled to realize that he had not moved except to splay his fingers out across the stone, had not so much as cracked an eyelid since I had tumbled down to rest near him. Was he helping me to fight off Ariel's crushing influence? I was unsure. I could not ask; I might never know. I certainly had no such luxury of finding out in the moment.

"I mean to rectify this, but fairly so." Ariel leaned back, settling further into her chair. "In the customs of your people, I would bargain with you."

"What would you have of me?" I dared, before I could lose the nerve to speak; Ariel smiled and tilted her head, changing the fall of her (long, short, curled, straight) light-touched hair, and said with a look like a tigress scenting deer, "My first concern is for my people. You will hide what you _truly_ are from all eyes and never speak of it again henceforth; for all intents and purposes, you will _become_ what the Furiae will purport you to be, and any unusual knowledge you display may be explained away by an eccentric taste in reading material. You will hold your allegiances thusly: to myself first, to Taion Helios and the Furiae as second, and to Aion above all. Ourobouros claims you were exiled as a traitor." The gyre at last lifted his head at that, unable to resist his name, and his black eyes were glazed and bleary, as if he woke from a deep sleep. Ariel continued without pause, eternal gaze affixed to mine. "Whatever crimes you were held responsible for in Asmodae, I render unto Aion for sake-keeping, for when you reach the end of the Long Road and meet Him at the last clearing, He will mete out judgment as He deems just." It held the ringing tones of both benediction and damnation, and I did not doubt her for a moment, not for one word of it. I knew. Any red-blooded being of Atreia knew it all for truth, and some lived in fear of that day when their souls would be weighed and measured. "I offer you a clean slate, a chance to begin anew. The freedom of any young noblewoman, to go where you wish, to speak your thoughts and hone your mind, and yes, hone your steel as well, if in time you find your leg more fit and capable than you believe. But my compassion is not without price."

She shifted in her chair again, and her face was full of untouchable majesty. "In return, I demand obedience. Should I ask of you anything - any favor, no matter how insignificant - you will comply, without question or hesitation. Do not think for one instant," and her regality grew both brighter and more terrible, her splendour swelling to make me feel of less greatness than even a gnat, "that I am unaware that this may yet be some elaborate ruse concocted by the Lord of Shadow. Asphel plays a deep game, and wide of scope. It is a fell thing, to enter unto a bargain with false pretenses, a thing of great dishonor. Taion and Ourobouros claim you hold your honor close, and precious; I would know also if this is true."

"It is," I said, without hesitation. What honor I had left, I rationed like a desert wanderer with water.

"Will you accede?" That was Taion, watching carefully, and I pried my silver gaze away to meet his golden one; it seemed so much easier now, so simple an affair, to stare a Daeva down! Exposure to Ariel had taught me the truth of how difficult it could be to merely look an Elyos in the eye, and in light of that knowledge, matching my will to Taion's proved easier than breath.

"I yet have questions."

"Ask them," grinned the owl, and Solana flicked her cirrus tail against the stone walkway with a sound like reeds in a gale.

"Why am I here?" More bluntly than I had intended; Oros, inexplicably visibly exhausted, perhaps aether-drunk himself, flicked his black gaze to me in stark warning, but Taion laughed, and Ariel receded, allowed us room to breathe and forget for a moment that we were in the presence of the ruler of the Seraphim Lords.

"I was minded to take a chance," said Taion smoothly, shrugging his shoulders. "My life is a charmed one."

"No deceptions between us," I said, demanded, a tenet I thought of at last, to build upon our budding agreement. "If I am to serve the Furiae, it will not be half-blind, my ears full of lies. I cannot defend a man I do not trust."

"I do not aim to deceive you," said the owl, too calm to be truly offended, but Oros's half-lidded gaze migrated to his face, and the gyre replied, "A lie by omission is still a falsehood." Taion blinked at that, and laughter burst from his frame, deep and heady, until it faded of its own accord to nothing more than a wide smile on his handsome face.

"I dreamed," he shrugged again, his nonchalance more natural than mine; he had likely had more time to practice it. "I dreamed of a road, and a caravan guarding an unwanted treasure. A broken-winged bird, caged and cold, the mark of angry kestrels at its throat. Terekai knew the road when I described it, and the spells of transport, the materials needed for a portal-working. We were three days in the mountains and about to turn for home, before Oros heard the singing." A third shrug. "The rest, you are well aware of."

I stared at him, disbelieving, completely rejecting the notion. What he was proposing was - was inconceivable - preposterous; but Taion had been honest thusfar in my dealings with him, limited as they were, and Oros did not leap to discredit him, as I was certain the dark-eyed Assassin would not have hesitated to do, if Taion lied. Ariel, too, sat complacent and silent, studying the three of us, a statue carven of light and aether. "Are you claiming that you _prophesied_ all this?"

Taion had the good grace to blush pink. "I dreamed, and that is all. When something so powerful calls out to you, you must follow it."

And I could not scoff, for I knew full well the sway dreams held over Atreian souls; an Asmodian version of Oros ghosted before my eyes, my heart in his clawed hand, and I remembered too hearing voices as I drowsed, claiming dead men told no tales. Dreams could warn, or save, or condemn. Twice my nightmares had aided me, waking me to threats or to knowledge I could not have otherwise held - thrice, it seemed, if Taion's dream had led me to this fate. Without it, I would even now be languishing at the White Barrow, left at the bottom of some dark oubliette, alone and forgotten.

But even so, I could not abandon the point once I had so blithely assailed it. "And am I to assume that _five other Daevas_ merely followed you out on a whimsical jaunt in the Asmodian woods, with nary a word said in objection?" I arched a brow, made my visage haughty. Taion's blush deepened, extended to the tips of his pointed ears.

"Taion," interjected Ariel tactfully, "has a reputation for eccentricities in his behaviour. It is something I find useful, as it keeps him rather more safe than a reputation for uncanny acumen."

"Safe from what?" I said, before my mind could catch up to my mouth; it was Oros that answered me, however, his voice hollow, almost distant, though his eyes were narrowed as though he faced down some hidden adversary. "The Helios."

"House Helios is a matriarchy," said the owl with an apologetic look, shifting in his chair, upsetting Solana in her comfort at his feet. "The bloodlines comprise of descendants of Lady Ariel's mortal sister, hence I am her nephew, many generations removed." A nod to the lady herself; she smiled and settled deeper within her throne, watching us, languid and serene. "The leader of the House is, traditionally, the strongest Daeva to Ascend from the royal line. At Helios, those that Ascend are almost always women."

"But you are not," I said, and Taion nodded.

"But I am not."

I began to understand, then. It made eminent sense now, why a Prince of Taion's station would accept a position with such a lack of prestige attached to it, why Oros and Kit were fanatical about his safety, nervous and edgy when any strangers drew a breath too close. He was a threat to the established leadership of a powerful Elyos House, a sign that the status quo could be upset with the merest press of a thumb upon the scale, and in response he had schemed himself into a place where he could acquire power without exposing himself to danger. Daevas were immortal, but that did not mean that they could not be killed; I knew that firsthand and all too well. And this man, clever as the proverbial fox, sat within arm's length of me, my host for six weeks, my putative liege-lord, awaiting only the proper oaths required to bind my fate unto his. Aion's teeth, what had I gotten myself into? "And what, exactly, would my role be, should I swear oaths of fealty to you? Aside from serving Ariel's every whim, of course," I said, finding refuge in audacity, the role of irritable and disrespectful Asmodian a familiar one. Jareth had told me once that I was only too well-suited to playing the devil's advocate, and I had never agreed with him more than in that moment.

Ariel, to her credit, did not openly appear to be so easily offended by my flippancy, but Oros flinched his eyes shut and the scent of his aether receded, overwhelmed by a hot tide of the Lady of Light's energy. My vision spotted, my head became light, and how I remained upright I am unsure, what willpower I could summon in that instant dedicated entirely to understanding the words spoken to me; at any rate, Taion, if he noticed, gave no sign of it, continuing. "Your role, should you swear oath, would be to act primarily as intelligence and consultation. I do not expect you to martially defend me or the Furiae, but you have proven to have a capable mind, and I appreciate a foreign viewpoint on my plans. Your people think in different paths than mine, as does a mortal from a Daeva - and that is an asset I am unashamed to exploit to the fullest."

The spots receded, as did the flow of aether across my senses, still omnipresent but no longer smothering. Oh, the headache would be _magnificent_ when I was removed from that wash of energy, and I could feel the seeds of precisely such a migraine taking root in my throbbing temples. Taion was still unmoved, not a hair out of place, Solana contented at his feet; I wondered if he was less sensitive to the flow of aether than Oros and I both seemed to be, or perhaps if he was better used to it, more capable of shrugging such off. "You would have me play the court butterfly?"

He smiled, pretty but bland, a look tailored to conceal - and seeing it, I wondered from _whom_ was he hiding his thoughts, me, or Ariel. "Among other roles. It is a useful persona, and due to Lady Ketterine's discreet work, your reputation will precede you."

"I'll not be some collared harlot," I said, finding strength to stiffen my back and give my silver eyes a baleful glaze, my chin a stubborn set. "If you wish a jewelled courtesan to pry men's secrets from them in the boudoir -"

"If I needed a courtesan, I would not have found a warrior," he noted, smooth as silk, tilting his head a fraction of a degree and a certain light in those sun-gold eyes. Ah, no doubt about it. It was very possible that he was young, and more than likely he was too clever for his own good by half. But Taion Helios was a dangerous man in the skin of an amiable one, that much I was certain of. What I was _not_ certain of was whether I wished to bind myself, with oaths of obedience and defense, to one of his ilk.

But then again, what other choice did I have? I had come this far; I would yet go a little further, traversing this slippery slope, walking the tightrope that led to the gallows.

"I am satisfied," I sighed at last, my leg beginning to hurt in earnest now, feeling as if the limb were being twisted in opposing directions. "I will take oath."

"Excellent." Ariel clapped her hands, sharp and loud and sudden, and from the shadows appeared a woman, tall and lithe, dressed in grey from head to foot aside from short night-black hair and violet eyes. How had I missed her, in the barest cover provided by the columns? She stepped without a sound or word to Ariel's side (an Assassin then, like Oros, for no other I had seen could move so easily, as though her joints were greased with elemental water) and the Lady of Light smiled at this shadow to her candle and said, "Make the proper arrangements, Ciel - I am enamoured of this idea of Lady Ketterine's, so much so that I think it should immediately be put into effect as concerns our newest subject. Records of birth and lineage, and a landed title, appropriate to an adoptee of House Delainne - perhaps a county or a small march, at the edge of Poeta or the like. A place where questions are not asked. Nephew," and her gaze slid to Taion, who was smoothing surprise from his face, likely shocked that Ariel knew of Kit's plan before _he_ did, "you will have it properly witnessed?"

"You know me, auntie," he grinned, with no small trace of irony in his tone. "I am thorough, especially where warranted."

"See that you are. Ciel will report to you when the papers have been assembled. I am loath to adjourn so soon, especially with so fascinating a guest, but court preparations must call me." She rose from her chair, graceful as flowing water, and Taion stood as well, gentlemanly, bending at the waist to receive a kiss on the cheek and murmured farewells from the Lady of Light. Oros came to his feet as well, rather less steadily than his lord, and I followed slowly, my calf and knee uncertain and tremulous. I could not help blinking in surprise, that Ariel was so trusting - she, I thought, must also have some hidden motive, though I could hardly fathom what.

Ariel and grey Ciel swept off under the colonnades, to a hidden door under the portico that was invisible against the stone until opened; once they were through and the portal sealed behind them, the force of Ariel's aether was withdrawn from the court like the air being pulled from a room, and for a split second I could not move, could not breathe, every muscle of me contracted and painful. I screwed my eyes closed against it, swayed on my feet, wondered fleetingly if I would keel over into Ariel's flowers and ruin Kit's lovely dress with dirt and my own awkwardness. Then the moment passed, and the agony of it condensed into my skull, the promised headache blooming into scarlet profusion behind my eyelids. Taion, heedless of my pain, waited just so long and no longer to take the gyre's arm and drape it crost his own shoulders, murmuring with a chiding tone, "Up with you, now, you great idiot. Solana, to the lady, if you please." The gyre made noises of weak protest, but in the end did not resist.

The spirit-beast whuffed from deep in her chest, but her reassuring weight and attention-seeking head found their way to my hip, to my right hand, prompting me to open my eyes to the light, searing even diluted by rain; Taion dragged-limped-carried Oros towards the carved cherrywood doors, and Solana, once my hand was fisted once more in her ruff, followed her master, necessitating my movement as well. "Is he well?" I gasped out between white spikes of pain in my leg and temples, and Taion sighed, a sound indicative of long suffering.

"He will be, given a few minutes to clear his head. Ariel's unfiltered presence never does him good." A glimpse of gold peering over their bridged shoulders. "Are _you_ well?"

"I will be," I echoed, grimly. He arched one sandy brow, but chose not to comment, and as we hobbled towards the door he looked away and said, "I would not force you into an oath against your will, no matter my aunt's desires. My Furiae are volounteers all."

"And what other choice have I, exactly?" I spat at his back, bitter. My head pounded immensely, and my patience was growing as a street urchin, ragged and thin and unwelcome. "I've no wish to return to the white-walled pit you kept me in my first week in your custody, nor do I desire the mysterious fate of Pentarus Lockstep - and I am _quite_ certain that I am unwelcome among my own people, seeing as they banished me in the first place. So if there is some clever alternative in that blue-blooded head of yours, Taion Helios, I am more than ready to hear of it." It all spilled out before I could stem the tide, like a half-healed wound will bleed freshly if one picks at the stitches long enough. My heart-wounds had been only haphazardly bandaged, and I did not like to be reminded of them, as I evolved moment by moment into the thing I despised most. Tiny little betrayals of who and what I was, leading me one step at a time into the Elyos way of life, where grace does not equal weakness and where survival and political cunning are prized above integrity.

Taion stopped, mere steps shy of the door, and Oros's head rose from where it lolled against his chest, the gyre coming around enough to resent being helped, as he jerked away from the owl as if burnt. Nico's voice was heard faintly on the other side, chattering indistinctly with another woman, perhaps Kit; Oros lifted a hand to rub his own temple, and freed of his burden, Taion turned to face me, his visage sober, gold eyes serious beneath a frowning brow. "I would send you away, if you wished it."

"Tai, don't be stupid," growled Oros, but the owl would have none of it, and I saw beneath the framework of his youthful face a glimpse of dire steel, the barest twilight gleaming of kingly fire. "I will not be gainsaid, not even by you, Oros. There are places, Lady Jaya, where our informants may be hidden, to live out peaceful lives. You were correct, when you spoke that the mortal must take proper care when dealing with the immortal." His eyes bored into mine, but though he offered me an escape, there was no yielding in him, none of that laid-back gentility he usually displayed. "There are lesser courts, if you wished social intrigue, and if not, then sedate rural postings. There are baronies in Elysea that have never _seen_ Daevas, or blood more noble than the average pedigreed brax, much less partaking of power-plays and House politics. They are calm places. Serene."

"Bucolic," noted Oros beneath his breath, leaning against the carved doors as he regained himself. "_Boring_."

Taion nodded, too wise to attempt defense of it. "They are that. But such places would be far from any immortal to trouble you, and further still from any Elyos clever enough to guess at your origin." He shrugged, a gesture quickly becoming typical of him. "I am not an unfair man, and the Lady of Light has left me this loophole, should you desire it. I will not press you into my service unwilling."

I stared at them both, golden-eyed Taion and Oros with his dark, unfathomable gaze, and thought well and hard. There was every chance that it was a legitimate offer; his face held no judgment or expectation, only a calm neutrality that said whatever my choice, he would find a way to make it reality. And it would be a _very_ peaceful life in the country, I was sure of that, if indeed the offer was genuine. Halcyon days, perhaps as a glorified farmer, queen over a kingdom of dairy beasts. Anything I wanted for could be earned honestly, with my own hands, if not provided for me by false title and fabricated bloodline; neither Elyos nor Asmodian would trouble me, Daeva or no, and I would live quietly till my last day, toiling and stagnant and bored beyond belief.

Oros watched me carefully, his eyes the waiting darkness, the shadow that is always there before the light. I thought of our meeting on the ramparts, the anger in his face, the fights he had intentionally provoked to draw me out of my depressive spiral and once more into the fire of life.

It was not in me, to live meekly and unwell, forgotten in some distant corner of Atreia. That was not _living_, it was _existing, _and no better than a life captive in the tower. I decided that I had had enough of _existing_.

"I will take oath," I said again, more sure of myself, and Solana whuffed once more, lashing her tail and lolling her pink tongue, as if silently baying her approval. "I appreciate the offer, Lord Taion, but I would go mad in the country as surely as I would as a kept creature. I will find ways to make myself useful."

Taion smiled out of pleasant surprise, a handsome smile, warm and bright in a way that hearkened back to Ariel's bloodline, and I knew at last why his House was named for the sun, crown jewel of Aion's raiment. "I do not think that will be such a difficult task as you believe. Have you a name, for your new incarnation?"

"Jaeyarithi." It tasted strange upon my tongue, and made Taion laugh, Oros scoff.

"Appropriate," said the gyre, and I could not help but smirk crookedly. "Kit and Nico thought so. The family name will have to wait until the papers."

"You are to be adopted into House Delainne, at any rate," said Taion shrewdly, "and that name will supersede the other, for the time being."

"That was _not_ part of Kit's plan, however Ariel came to know of it," I added, though quietly, and that made the men exchange a meaningful glance before Oros shouldered open the cherrywood doors, displaying more and more coherency the further distance that time placed between himself and the Lady of Light.

"What game is she playing at _now?_" growled Oros, and Taion made a noncommittal noise in his throat. Awaiting us on the other side of the doors were the white-clad guardsmen, at attention and silent as statues, then a layer of the Furiae's own mortal guard, and then in the center of _their_ midst were Nico and Kit, their conversation ceasing as soon as we emerged from the little courtyard into the marble hall. "What game would that be?" said Nico brightly; the women and guardsmen joined us as we left those inner corridors, our destination entirely in the hands of striding Taion, who moved with purpose on a journey I could not begin to guess at. My sense of direction had long ago been upset by the labyrinthine nature of the heart of the keep, and I could not have found my way back to my quarters, or to Terekai's tower, even with a compass and a map to guide me. More damned walking was not what I wished to experience, either, but I had little choice in that matter as well, and between my aching leg and aching head, I was almost hoping for another ambush by Liath Beltaine, simply so that I would have a convenient target upon which to expend my ire. When our voices spoke again, it was in more familiar corridors, with naught but the company of our own guardsmen and the silent walls as witness.

"Lady Jaeyarithi," and how irony dripped from the gyre's voice as he spoke those words! "is to be adopted into House Delainne." I had the fortune of seeing Kit's face when this was spoken, and though her glissande step remained smooth, she blanched in open surprise, her shaking hands hidden in the crushing and gathering of folds of her gown. Her voice, to her credit, did not so much as tremble. "She has not overtly meddled with any House in centuries. Why begin to do so now? Not that I would not be glad to have you for my sister, Jaya," she added with a watery smile, and I give her a crooked grin in return.

"And I would be honored to be so," said I, "but it does seem passing strange. Is my appearance so earth-shattering that it threatens the High Court's status quo?"

"I think not." Kit shook her head, colour somewhat returning to her face as she strove past the shock of it to contemplate the political implications. "Your case is unprecedented, of that I am sure, but that she would directly interfere with any House's affairs - it's unthinkable."

"Not quite. She hasn't _directly_ interfered, no, but I'm sure at least half of the troubles of the Houses can be traced back to her," growled Oros under his breath, a thought so dangerously close to sedition that Taion and Kit both looked at him, eyes wide in alarm. He glared at them both, unrepentant. "What? It isn't as though she isn't placed for it, or bored enough to do so, for that matter."

"Your paranoia will have us all banished to the Abyss, gyre," Taion hissed through a teeth-grit smile. Solana huffed and whined at the very mention of it, such that I felt the need to soothe her by kneading her great skull with affectionate fingers. The wind elemental was fast growing on me, and she leaned up into my touch, glad of it.

"Paranoia is a trait of any well-adjusted nobleman," Oros retorted, "especially in _this_ court. Besides, I am charged with _your_ safety, owl. It's in my rights to trust no one, least of all those in power."

"Maybe she's just trying to light a fire under your bum, Kit," said Nico reasonably and a touch loudly, her eyes betraying a few grains of panic as she attempted valiantly to swerve the conversation in a less treasonous direction. "I mean, House Delainne used to be pretty powerful."

"If the Lady wishes to startle me into marriage and continuation of the line," Kit noted, rather more quietly than Nico, "she lays her gambits with interesting bait." As she said this, Taion reached a set of grey-blue doors at the end of a short cul-de-sac to our right, marked with the painted gold amphora denoting a priest, and guarded by a small squadron of mortal men and women; they parted before him without question, and he placed a hand upon the wood, cerulean wisps of light and energy dancing about his fingers for the span of a heartbeat, the aether cool as winter's breath across my senses, already scraped raw by Ariel's show of power. Then he shouldered the portals open unannounced, speaking as he did so, "Asphel is not the only Lord who plays a deep game. Kiert, are you -?"

"Awake? Yes," I heard the clipped voice of the swan from within, and one by one we filed through the doorway into a long, narrow infirmary, too small to be the primary careplace for all of Sanctum's battalions, but large enough by far for the meager militia of the Furiae, I think. Beds marched up and down the scrubbed white walls at regular intervals, interspaced with windows high on the left wall and wooden screens placed neatly between, most laying flat in collapsed vertical form against the stone walls. At the far end of the long rectangle, a bed was obscured from view by said screens, and further still by a second troupe of mortal soldiers standing guard; it was here that Kiert Fireheart's blonde head was visible, pushing past the hovering guardsmen to approach us, wearing robes of immaculate white, with the sleeves rolled past his elbows. His face bore a pinched frown, his sunny braid was in shambles, and he sketched the mockery of a little bow to the group of us crowding his little infirmary before turning to point irritatedly at the mortal guards. "All of you, out! You'll smother him to death, and my lord is as like in need of privacy. You can fret over him from outside just as easily. Get moving!"

If they did not hop to obedience, it was only because they all sent worried looks in the direction of the hidden patient; then they filed out past us in pairs, filling the hallway we had recently vacated, and Taion aetherically 'locked' the doors with his own hands, another flare of pale blue light, another puff of energy across my senses. Kiert exhaled sharply in exasperation, raked us all with his emerald gaze, burning bright with the arrogance of a petty king within his domain. Here, I was certain, Taion was no better than the rest of us, for Kiert's concern was with his patients, and not the sensibilities of any trespassing nobles.

"You," and he pointed, not at me but Solana, "will be careful, young lady. No exuberance of any kind, do you hear? I'll not have all my work on him undone because you felt the need to lick his face."

Solana whined again, lowering her head and lashing her thick tail, and Kiert took this for acceptance, for he turned on a heel to stride back the way we had come. Taion took the tacit invitation to follow, as did we all, one flowing train of Elyos playing follow-the-Daeva. "How is he?" the owl asked; I saw Kiert's shoulders bunch in a tight shrug.

"As well as can be expected. He is stable, but there has been some delirium, and signs of cold-fever. I have given him herbal tisanes, and what aid I can muster through the aether, though mortal flesh is stubborn. I did not find evidence of poison in the wound, but without the blade that struck it," he stared pointedly at Oros then, viridian eyes blazing, and I wondered then if the Daeva-cleric had bothered with sleep at all, "I cannot come to any absolute conclusions." We reached the barrier-screen, and I hardly recognized the figure reclining in the bed beyond it; Sathas's face was ashen and his hair lank, brow tense as if he was pained even in dreaming, and a thick white blanket draped his from from chin to toes. As we fanned out around the bed - Nico perched upon the edge of the bed on the opposing wall, Oros found a place under the nearest window, and Kit took up place at Sathas's left hand while Taion and Kiert were at his right - Solana and I stood at the foot of the poor guard's bunk, watching as Kiert drew back the blanket. Sathas was nude from the waist up, a sight that made Nico cackle appreciatively at his exposed chest, but the rest of us had eyes only for the linen bandages wound about his midsection, and the bright red stain seeping through from the site of his wound.

"It's early to expect him to wake to any coherency," said Kiert, unwontedly grim of expression, "but barring any interference from outside sources, he will recover fully. I am confident he will be well enough for light drillwork within a week at the outside." He allowed the blanket to pool around the man's hips, and Sathas shifted in his sleep, frowning slightly, as if presented a puzzle that he could not solve. Solana crept forward to nose the prone guardsman's limp hand, her bulk combined with the crowding Daevas prompting Kiert to shoo all except Kit from the bedside, and her presumably due to her limited knowledge of mortal medicines. "Aion above, the lot of you are as bad as his unit! Give the boy some room to breathe."

"Where is Trist?" asked Kit; Kiert knelt and began to rummage in some hidden container slotted beneath the bed, producing rolls of clean bandages that were set in neat rows next to Sathas's unconscious form. "Sleeping, I should think, if he is not eavesdropping among the lords, fishing for tidbits in wake of events. They too often forget that those who are _mute_ are not also _deaf_." A slender pair of scissors joined the linens, small and gleaming bright. Kit plucked these up without being asked and began to slice through the layers of bloodied bandages at Sathas's middle, and Taion and Solana retreated to the oppositing bed, the former taking a seat next to Nico, the latter whining and flopping to the floor at Oros's feet. The gyre bent to tousle her mane with his clever fingers, almost absently. I stepped to one side, leaning against a wall to allow those present a view of the proceedings, and found myself nearest Oros, my hands laced together to prevent them from idle fidgeting and my leg protesting louder with every second that passed.

"You should be abed yourself," admonished Kit as the swan came to his feet, bearing a fist-sized pyramidlike vial filled with some purple concoction and stoppered with cork, which was set aside for the nonce. "Your eyes are burning. Did you rest at all last night?"

"Trist needs the rest far more than I," said Kiert, peeling bandages back from Sathas's wound with utmost care, delicately not answering her question. "Besides, I am the only cleric you have, and who should I trust to watch over him in my stead? You have the knowledge, Kit, and I trust you to defend any assassins seeking a second chance, but your presence is required elsewhere much of the time."

"Ah, yes, the burden of nobility," drawled Kit, unravelling linens as well, but from the opposing side. The wound, once exposed to open air, was red and angry-looking, slowly oozing blood from a row of neat stitches in black thread, scrawled across Sathas's side. It looked to be well-done, in as much as I knew about medicine, though the guardsman would have an evil scar. "Always and forever, we return to court politics."

"Why? What has happened now?" He quirked a blonde brow, glancing at the rest of us, and Taion coughed to hide a smile when Nico chimed in, "Ariel's got some weird ideas about Jaya and House Delainne."

That gave the swan pause, and he glanced to me with a prompting tilt of his head. "I am to be adopted into the House, once oaths of fealty are properly sworn to owl, Ariel and Aion." I shrugged; my feelings were rather mixed upon the subject, and I could not help but be suspicious of clever Ariel, to whom my life was but a blink in the eye of eternity, a pawn on some cosmic chessboard where she played opposite Asphel.

"And what did you think of her? Our Lady of Light. I daresay you are the first of your kind to lay eyes on her since the Cataclysm." Kiert turned his gaze to Sathas, aiding Kit in propping the man up so that the filthy linen could be removed, but I felt the collective attentions of all five Daevas (and one spirit-beast) focus upon me, metaphorical ears perked.

I fixed my silver gaze on a neutral point, some distant, empty bed, and said, "They say she is compassion incarnate, in the stories, and Asphel Lord of Darkness calls her weak for it. But I think that no one, Lord or Lady, rules for as long as she has without having the cunning of a fox - and balls of solid steel."

There was a dreadful pause where I worried that I might have sorely misjudged my audience, but then there was a burst of laughter on all sides, even from Kiert; all but Oros and Solana had barked openly in mirth, and though the wind spirit lolled her tongue in her elemental's grin, the gyre only allowed himself a smudge-eyed smile, shaking his head and folding his arms across his chest as he did so. "She has that in spades!" laughed Taion, gold eyes gleaming. Nico, seated next to him, had to wipe her eyes. "Ketterine is right, you will be a delightful horror at court with such... _candid_ opinions."

I could not help but return his grin. "I do not dissemble when unwarranted."

"And I will be with you, to remind you when it is so needed," smirked Kit, folding a rectangle of linen and liberally applying the purple liquid from the stoppered vial, which was pressed to Sathas's wound, likely the tisane Kiert had mentioned before. Over this, the High Chantress began to wind rolls of bandages around his midsection, the limp guard propped up by the swan's careful hands. "Otherwise, I think you will be quite the sensation. There are those who are quite curious about my hermit poetess."

"What have you been telling people about me, Kit?" I asked, and made my eyes narrow and my voice suspicious, though a smile still lingered about my lips. She flashed her crooked grin at me between making laps of Sathas's belly with the bandages.

"Surely you do not think I have let your hard work go unappreciated?"

I paused, struck by a sudden and terrible thought, my forgotten headache surging briefly to the fore. "Have you been sharing the Lay with the court?"

"Only in spoken verse," she assured me as she tended to Sathas, "and only pieces of the poetic translation, not the faithful one. It is quite the fashion at court now, to quote the Lay between lovers. We are a sentimental people at our core, and tragedies pluck at the heartstrings. I am assailed daily with requests to make a play of it."

I suppose I should have expected something of the sort - and without the melody to back it, the supernatural curse upon the Lay seemed ineffective, for how many of these long weeks had we labored over the translation with little immediate effect, repeating choice bits back and forth between ourselves? For all the tales of misfortune that surrounded the song connected with the tale, all of them had one thing in common: a violent and immediate culmination, rarely inflicted upon the singer but often to those around her, as if to keep the thing from being heard in full. But still I worried, the memory of over a dozen dead Asmodians gnawing at my heart. When it came to forces I did not understand, superstition in such matters was not foolish, merely prudent. If the Lay was ever performed as spoken verse from start to finish, I would be certain to vacate the premises, simply to avoid falling casualty to the mischief that hung about Mishuvel's greatest work.

"I do not think that is wise," I said faintly, watching as Kit tied off the bandage, and she and the cleric set about tucking in Sathas against the cool air. My leg was trembling beneath my skirt, fed up at last with my abuse of it, prompting me to set the lion's share of my weight against the wall and pretend I did not notice; I would not yet openly admit to weakness, especially before the Daeva cleric.

"It is proving wildly popular, and no harm has yet come of it," said the peregrine, her smile bright as new-minted kinah. "I promise you, Jaya, the moment something untoward occurs in connection with the Lay, I will have it squelched." She met my gaze without flinching, and Kit had given me the most reason of all assembled to trust her; I would have to hold my tongue, at least until I experienced some evidence that the mysterious power of the Lay to bring disaster was summoning itself to the fore. "And besides, I see this as a grand experiment - if the Lay's popularity proves to have any staying power, and not merely a thing of novelty, it will be the first of many works I wish to translate into Elyan. _The Dynasty of Storms_ would be next, I think, and then perhaps _Raphielle's Aria_ or _The Shugo King_-"

"Jaya, are you quite well?" said Kiert, sharp eyes detecting the tremor in my stance, and I was forced to smile and come up off the wall, some evasion on my lips, I am sure, for I do not remember it now. What I do recall is how my calf decided that it had had enough of cooperation that day, and the leg simply folded up beneath me, prompting a rush of activity - Kit and Nico haulled themselves short gasping, knowing I disliked to be touched, and Nico in turn held back Taion and Solana, who whined in anxiety - but Oros, who was closest and had little care for personal boundaries, caught me up under one arm as Kiert came forward to take the other. "Clearly, the answer is 'no'," mused the swan, and he and the gyre marched me over to the bed that had formerly served as stadium seating, causing all seated upon or near it to flee for other perches, like upset birds.

"Let _go_ of me, I am perfectly fine," I growled at them both, impotently, and once I was set upon the bed, they did just that, Kiert setting his hands on his hips to eye me critically. Oros resumed his place at the wall, smirking, enjoying my discomfiture; I could soldier through a stranger's touch so long as I was _asked_ first, but being manhandled about was an uncomfortable reminder of my early days in captivity, and all that went with it. I levelled my best scathing glare at the gyre, and consoled myself with vivid pictures of those pristine white and blue leathers dyed with pink polka dots.

"The leg?" prompted Kiert Fireheart, drawing my attention back to the Daeva-cleric before me, and my stare yet smouldered when I transferred it to him; he met it with one of his own, and grumbling, I lifted my hem enough to expose my scar-banded calf, the bandages loose and tangled into a magpie's nest of fabric, most of the strands strangling the joints. The thick stripes of tissue where my injury once was ran down the side and back of my calf, from knee to ankle like some grotesque bolt of lightning, truncating in a nasty knot where leg met foot and permanently kinking the joint, my foot canted forever inward. Kiert, once my leg was divested of my slipper, took utmost care in stripping me of the bandages, one palm pressed to the arch of my now-delicate little toes, very Elyos in appearance. "There should be salve, in one of the drawers, Kit -"

"Just a moment," chirped the Chantress, already rummaging beneath Sathas's cot, and Taion tilted his head to study my leg, as if seeing the injury for the first time. "It's healed quite well," he remarked, fascinated, "though explaining it away to eager young men wishing to dance with you will be interesting, to say the least."

"It's just as well," I said, attempting to force the growl from my voice, watching nigh-obsessively as swan and peregrine conspired to see my scars briskly bathed in fragrant herbal salve from the familiar clay jar, hating every moment of it no matter how necessary. The air was tepid with so many warm bodies to heat it, but after a month of having the skin of my leg bound beneath bandages, it felt icier than Triniel Lady of Death's heart, and I itched to see my scars covered once again. "I can't dance."

"Oh, now, that won't do," laughed Nico, at last deigning to release Solana from her grip. The spirit-beast promptly moved to my side, shoving her great head into my lap and all but demanding soothement, which I provided, and rather took the wind out of my sails. "All that work, undone so easily? We'll teach you."

"The hell you will," I muttered, weakly, which made Nico laugh all the more.

"It has its practical uses," smirked Kit, on hand and ready for when Kiert traded the clay jar for rolls of linen. "It builds balance, and grace, and stamina."

"All of which you will need, if you ever plan to lift a sword again," noted Oros, and I looked up from where the cleric had his hands on me, to stare at Oros and his night-black eyes. He tilted his head, the ghost of a smirk playing about the corners of his mouth, and he knew he had me cold; the gyre had a unique talent, in that he could sniff out what best he should use to pique my interest. Kindness as bait. He played that game only too well. "Carcarron is not the only Keep what may have a mistress of blades. If there is a soul in Elysea that can teach you to fight -"

"I was a warrior _before_ my injury, mark you, gyre," I said, coldly. "I already know how to fight."

He paused briefly, corrected himself as he went on, that gossamer smirk becoming more tangible by the second, "- to fight with your _handicap_, it is she. The _geas_ will hold you well enough in check to prevent a murderous rampage, I think, and I can't be bothered to be dragged from my bed every time some noble bearing a grudge decides to visit your bedchambers."

"You can't mean -?" said Taion, an open grin on his handsome features, and Oros only nodded, the smirk graduating into corporeal form, some joke shared between the pair of them that I had no sense of whatsoever. "I should detail you to overseeing such training, for merely _suggesting_ such a thing."

"You should," and Oros broke out in a fully-fledged grin as well, "but you won't."

"Oh? Bet me."

"It will have to wait, at any rate," Kiert interrupted pointedly, making a few quick passes over my knee before tucking the end of the bandage into itself, tying it cleverly that it would not come undone easily. "Afternoon bells will be ringing soon enough, and here you all are, hardly dressed for court."

"And Ciel will be waiting at my quarters, I am sure," sighed Taion, running a hand through his short spikes of hair. "The woman works damnably fast when paperwork involves itself. All right - let us have the oaths properly sworn and witnessed, lest our Lady of Light accuse me of weaseling out of a fair bargain."

Kiert, mildly surprised that such a thing had not already been accomplished, was swiftly brought up to speed by Nico's amusingly brief explanations, with additions where necessary by Taion and Oros; the scholar-Prince then provided the words, and I repeated them, four Daevas and an elemental spirit attendant. I, Jaeyarithi nai Delainne, promised upon my faith in Aion that I would be a loyal servant to Ariel Lady of Light, and a steadfast companion in the service of Prince Taion Helios, swearing never to cause them harm, and to observe my homage to them completely and without deceit. There was a little ceremony then, blurred sigils of aether sketched into the air over our clasped hands - scarlet for Oros, gold for Kit, indigo for Nico and green for Kiert - and I marvelled that I could detect their shapes and colours, wondered after it, though I did not note it aloud for that group of minds to pick over and ponder. Most likely it was an effect of being so close to Ariel, the most potent node of aether in the entire region, and I had other concerns laying at the forefront of my mind.

Thus it was that I became a peer of the realm, and even as we travelled (sans Kiert and Sathas) en masse to our assorted quarters in the Furiae wing, I could not help wondering for the second time that day, neck deep in Elyos intrigue: what have I gotten myself into?


	14. Chapter 14

Court lived up to my every expectation: it was an absolute _nightmare._

At Carcarron, my visits to court were sporadic, spurred only by necessity or Raum's request. Raum, as Avarran's heir, was made a creature of politics from youth; Jareth had a talent for it as well, and the pair of them were quite formidable when they presented their arguments to the court, tall and handsome and charming. My education was no less thorough than theirs, and my manners no less exquisite, when I chose to exercise them - but I never discovered the same _passion_ that my brother and Raum found in debate and rhetoric, in persuasion and rumour. Jareth, as a budding sorcerer with an ample enough heritage to command respect, was deemed more than adequate to safeguard Raum from the claws of the harpies hunting him for a husband, and I was left in peace to my practices and my studies. It was only during the tensest moments that I accompanied Raum to the polls, the times when tempers ran high and issues had the power to divide the entirety of the Duchy, times that a well-placed knife between the ribs could tilt the world in one faction's favor.

Oros was right; a dagger in the dark was sometimes worth a thousand swords at dawn.

But I would have given _anything_ to have Jareth at my elbow when I strode through those carved and gilded doors, into the glittering and deceptive heart of the High Court at Sanctum, announced on the heels of the three Daevas who had masterminded my fate.

"Marquise Jaeyarithi Cymraele nai Delainne, of House Delainne, aetheling!"

Cymraele was a recently destroyed House, Ciel's papers had informed me, the bearers of its bloodline decimated by plague, its ancestral lands consisting of a set of marches at what must have been the very _end_ of Atreia, for Taion could find them on no map and even well-travelled Trist, relaying his words through Kit when the redheaded Daeva was roused from his bed, denied having ever overflown it. That a survivor of Cymraele had slipped through fate's fingers, held fast in the hands of Aion Himself, seemed an obvious sort of lie, but one such that was romantic enough to appeal to the rest of the nobility, to give reason for my being cloistered away until the status of Cymraele and any outstanding debts of honor could be ascertained. Kit would put it about discreetly that it was not plague that took the true Marquis and his family, but poison, a clever and subtle assassin's hand that had ended the lives of a country lord and three of his children - all save one, his youngest daughter. A trick of timing visiting friends had saved my fictitious nobility from an ignoble end, and I had apparently traveled directly to a neighboring barony, where there yet lived a lord of thin blood but steady heart, loyal stoutly to House Delainne, and stouter still to Ariel and the Daevas of Sanctum.

From there they had allegedly smuggled me into the hands of Lady Ketterine, under direst secrecy - which neatly explained the Furiae's collective absence from court, during Taion's time gallivanting about the Asmodian mountainside - and from there to Sanctum, where Ketterine begged of Prince Taion, her widely acknowledged liege-lord, to take my case to Ariel. While Ariel investigated the events at Cymraele (for she was too canny, it was invented now, to quite disbelieve that I had not engineered the tragedy myself) I was an honored guest among the Furiae, assisting Lady Ketterine in her quirky and whimsical work translating Asmodian ballads into the tongue of the Elyos, a task for which I proved to have the heart of a poetess and the tongue of a lark.

It would even explain why an assassin had come for me in the night, in the center of Sanctum, to still my beating heart before I could be brought before the court as a whole.

Too smooth, I thought. Too many holes, too many points of contact - this country baron, would no one think to question him? - but though I thought my concerns valid, when I had put the very same question to Ciel Bladewhisper, Ariel's chosen champion, she had merely stared at me with her deep, startlingly violet eyes as if I were a particularly slow child, saying not a word.

How such things could be so quickly arranged was beyond my ken. Perhaps Ciel had sent her own agents - perhaps she had taken advantage of Terekai's portals and visited this baron herself, though I doubted it, for they were so close to the edge of the world that _surely_ these Cymraele marches had hardly any aether innate to the land to speak of. All I was aware of, as I was announced to the throng of Elyos nobles, was a desperate need to _run_ and run _far_ and as fast as my crippled leg would take me.

It was very delicately choreographed by Taion and Kit, prepared for well in advance; they entered together, Taion a half-step and one name ahead of Kit, side by side as commander and lieutenant, lord and lady, symbolic of the leadership of the Furiae, such as it was. Oros was two steps behind Taion to his left hand, leathers pale to offset his white hair and dark eyes, the black blade sheathed at his hip, and he did not seem expected to remove it. True, I spotted many such weapons around the room past the Daevas' shielding silhouettes, at the hips of the protectors of present lords and ladies, some overtly displayed, others much less so. Oros did not draw much attention when he was announced, and so I took it as a matter of course that he went armed into Ariel's court, the better to defend Taion's personage from the slings and arrows of Elyos temperaments. That he did not have a noble House attached to his name was a curiosity, and by extension, his announcement was by far the shortest of the three that preceded me.

Then the three of them parted, Taion and Oros to the left, Kit to the right, and I was revealed as when the clouds part to allow a single shining ray of golden light to strike the earth like a spear from heaven. The gleaming sea of Elyos swayed and turned and stopped, staring as one, a multitude of uncountable eyes focused upon my every breath. I was glad then for Kit and Nico's clever ministrations, coiffing my hair with silver pins, smoothing the folds of the grey-green dress with its dancing griffins, for though I did not _feel_ a country lady, for a surety I _looked_ one. I was even properly terrified of the masses of Elyos nobles, Daevas and mortals mixed together in great heaping spades, my silver eyes huge in my (most assuredly death-pale) face as I strode forward to drop low in courtly courtesy, my legs straining, stranded in an ocean of fabric.

Kit took one elbow, and Taion the other, lifting me up in formal gesture of their support, both of me and my circumstances, which I was sure would circulate the court in a trice if Trist or Kit had not already done so prior; then came the kiss of greeting, first Taion as was his right as Prince, then Kit, cool pecks on my cheek to show their approval. Touch was a language all its own amongst the Elyos, and though I seethed beneath my skin to allow such an open gesture, it would, ultimately, be necessary. I was not looking forward to the press of Elyos bodies, when I would be 'stripped' of my escort and left alone amongst the harpies, cast out upon the seas as a very special kind of bait.

And what _Elyos_ there were, crammed into that vast high-ceilinged court! I had never seen so many of them in one place; even in my dream of chasing Mishuvel's dragon, a horde of birds and Daevas in her wake, I could not have imagined such variety in the pale people of the south. I saw handsome lords and ladies decked in silk, bodyguards of common birth in gleaming gold or silver armor, Daevas little more than children, ancient wizened men and women, their eyebrows tufts of cloud floating over craggy, mountainous faces. Everywhere I looked was a riot of colour, of gems set in armor or sewn into bodices, elaborate braids seeded with pearls or manes left long and loose to sweep the marble floor with their tips, eyes of every colour, faces of every feature, some marred from battle, all beautiful, or in the case of the elders, the matured and silvered echo of youth's first blush. I felt aether-auras about me like a tempest, keen and wicked minds seeking to take my measure, probing the edges of my thoughts, a million colours and tastes and sensations across my senses, scraped so recently raw from Ariel's closeness.

They sought to overwhelm me, but even though it dragged at my limited store of strength, I stood fast, buoyed upwards by the thought of autumn air across sand dunes. Ariel had taught me a valuable lesson, when she came too near to smothering me with her aura, and I am not one to let such important knowledge go to waste.

The Lady of Light herself sat on a modest throne at the very back of the court, alone on a high dais that allowed her to reign over the entirety of that massive room - her eyes unfathomable, her chameleon's face secretive, her aether held under exquisitely careful containment, mere tendrils of it flowing through the room as subtle reminders of her presence. Compared to the memory of her fully-unleashed might, the rest of them combined was not so difficult a trial.

And then that eternal moment passed; Taion drew me to the side, chattering amiably in my ear to allow me time to work through the blood rushing through my temples. My staggering step could be blamed, for the nonce, on my obvious startlement at being presented to so _large_ a contingent of nobles, and I saw a few who hesitated to hunt after us, seeing my dazed face, my less than graceful hobble. Those kind faces were burned into my memory, allies to be cultivated or weaknesses to be exploited. One of those who did _not_ hesitate, however, was Liath Beltaine, his single cobalt eye flashing.

"Lady Cymraele," said Beltaine smoothly, bowing from the hip as he accosted us, "allow me to be the first to welcome you to the High Court. Prince Helios, Lady Delainne, Lord Ourobouros," he added as he straightened, only _now_ careful to follow the order of precedence in which they had been announced. "I am pleased to see you all unharmed. Word has it that some _awfulness_ befell the Furiae in the small hours of the night - is it true?"

"And where did you hear such a thing, Lord Beltaine?" smiled Kit, oozing pleasant charm from every pore of her ivory face. "I was unaware that the court as a whole took such interest in the private affairs of one legion."

"Ah, but 'tis no ordinary legion we speak of, now, is it?" he smirked back at her, shifting his weight to one hip in a manner in which I expected to see a blade attached to it. It would have well-matched him, in his burgundy velvet with his swordmaster's ponytail, the mass of scar tissue where his left eye should have been a grim reminder of the dangers of mortality. "Rumour speaks that an entire unit of your militia was mobilized in the dead of night, and that some ruckus was heard from a room well inside your wing. I daresay half the castle came awake at such commotion!"

I remembered the tromp and stomp of dozens of boots, of Kit and Oros warding them well away from where I held Sathas's life in my blood-slick fingers, of Kryson's agonized face as we passed by with his brother unconscious and in tow. "I... I cannot tell you, Liath," said Kit, a hand pressed to her upper chest and her face contorted, as if it caused her _unspeakable_ pain to withhold any such information from the one-eyed Beltaine. "It is such a horrific matter, I dare not to speak of it."

"Certainly it is not for the ears of such a well-bred lady," noted Taion, patting Kit's elbow in princely sympathy, seeming very _young_ as he did so, a shadow of the fox I had seen in Ariel's private garden. "If only such misery could have been avoided on your part, Ketterine! My deepest apologies - my foresight was not enough in this matter."

Beltaine's cobalt eye held a magnificent hunger for intrigue, and with cunning well-veiled in his sharp-angled face, he spoke, "If you are aggrieved of it, my Prince, I humbly offer my advice, from the commander of one legion to another. The Fidelis have never lacked under my captaincy, and should my experiences prove useful to you, I would be more than happy to aid you."

He played it well, did Taion, that much I will readily accredit him with. He hesitated, ever so briefly, glancing sideways to Oros, who nodded very fractionally - a nice touch, that; I remembered the gyre naming Liath Beltaine the largest rat at court, assuredly the quickest path to rampant rumours about my true race - and then Kit burst into hysterical tears, falling upon my shoulder with such wondrous acting that even I, who was in on the game, flushed and wondered for a moment what was the matter. I murmured my apologies to a startled Lord Beltaine ("Of course, my lady," he said, his attentions quickly sopped up by Taion's own act) and drew Kit away to a sheltered nook on the wall, between heavy tapestries and marble busts on plinths, where I went about my own play of comforting and calming her.

Delicate sensibilities were to be expected of a highborn lady such as Kit, and such sensibilities, once upset, were not easily again put to rights. This allowed us more than enough time to converse between ourselves, as I made a show of dabbing her cheeks with an embroidered handkerchief, of smoothing her hair and comforting her. Apparently, it was an acceptable role for a country lady, to be the handmaiden of Ketterine Delainne. "I'm not sure I like him," I said as darkly as I dared, and Kit hid a smirk beneath the hands covering her mouth.

"He is not the most.... _tactful_ of conversationalists," she agreed, "but he has his hand on the pulse of rumour, and used correctly, he is a weapon we may turn to our own ends."

"A two-edged weapon," I noted, and she hummed, "They are _all_ two-edged, in my experience, Jaya."

"What do we do now, then?" I saw from the corner of my eye that Taion was speaking avidly to Beltaine, his manner that of a young lord who was unsure of himself but attempting to hide it, Oros the patient and silent guardian, watching Taion like the hawk whose wings he bore; when other lords drew too near, their curiosities burning to know what had caused Ketterine Delainne to weep so dramatically, Oros warded them off with sharp glances and even keener words.

"Well," Kit whispered as she bowed her head, to allow me to examine her metallic mane for any hairs gone rogue, "after the socializing has reached an appropriate peak, Ariel will call for all business to be brought before the throne. Oros will present your case, though I doubt any lord will be so foolish as to claim the dagger as his own, and then we will wait." These words too were calculated in case of eavesdroppers who saw through Kit's facade, a possibility which could never, except in Terekai's tower, be completely ruled out - and I had my doubts about that as well, given that Ariel knew of Kit's plans for me before _Taion_ had been told of them, and I knew of them first while in that tower, playing with trunks of dresses. "Watch the crowd when it is announced. Perhaps some lord's face will betray him."

Yet more for my doubts to encompass. Soon I would be jaded enough to fit the whole of Atreia within the blackened wasteland of my heart. "I will." We spent several minutes upon the charade, soothing Kit's ruffled feathers while Taion rooked Beltaine with everything he was worth, and then when Kit seemed _herself_ again, she set a hand upon my shoulder and smiled. "Try not to look so dour, Jaya! This is a privilege many a girl _dreams_ about, to debut at no place less than Ariel's own court. Forge me a smile, hmm?"

I tried. It must have been a good one, for Kit laughed quietly and said, "Mind you our discussion, young lady. Accept no inquiries of marriage, no matter the lord's station or House, and direct any who insist to myself or Prince Taion. Any lordling who is indiscreet in his words or his offers may be sent to Lord Ourobouros for a sound thrashing. And always remember: you are my heir, and you bow to _no_ one but the Prince, or Ariel herself."

That had been a _quaint_ little _detail_ that Taion had, of course, failed to _mention_ until the last second - that, since House Delainne consisted solely of Kit herself, I was now considered an aetheling in my own right, much as Taion was one of a handful of aethelings of House Helios, a recognized potential heir. The only difference was that where Taion was one of several, I was alone, a rare prize to tempt those who would have otherwise shied away from speaking with me out of sheer natural (and well-founded) suspicion. Taion had spoken true when he said he did not expect me to seduce the secrets from nobles of the court - but that did not mean that my status could not be made as attractive as possible for those like Liath Beltaine, for whom the hunt _itself_ was as good or _better_ than the end result of such wooing.

Nico had laughed for _ten solid minutes_ when this piece of the plan was revealed, finding it a just revenge for whatever slight Beltaine had paid her in the past, while I merely sat and stared at the assembled Daevas, my cheeks alternating between icy-pale and bonfire-hot.

By then, it had, unfortunately, been far too late to renege, or I would have thrown Ciel's papers back in her placid, unreadable face.

With a final encouraging smile, Kit sashayed into the crowd, leaving me adrift in a sea of blue blood and aether, and the nobles closed in upon me like a flock of silk-clad vultures.

How many Elyos caught my arm or shoulder or trapped me in their bright smiles, taking merciless advantage of my fear and slight confusion, relentlessly exploiting what appeared in full to be a green country lady with no concept of how massive and treacherous such a gathering of Elyos could be? I cannot say. Caught in a tide of bodies and propelled unwillingly between islands of important figures and their entourages, I met Daevas from all ends of Elysea, many of whom I had not seen on my earlier sweep of the court - hawk-faced generals and achingly beautiful sorceresses, mortal ladies who outshone their immortal counterparts, some with cutting remarks for me and some with veiled and calculated kindness. I answered mild and impersonal questions, often the same ones couched in differing language and accents, and showed myself to be quick of wit and unafraid of spirited speech, if in places uncertain of correct protocol, which allowed me to get away with dispensation (on my part, at least) of certain political niceties, such as touch. All of them seemed to wish to _touch_ me in ways that would have been inappropriate, even insulting among my former people; I had to contain shivers of revulsion and intense fury whenever I was grasped without warning or permission, until my snappishness overcame my fear of being discovered, and my smile was a bright, brittle thing that awaited for the proper trigger upon which to shatter into a million bloody pieces.

It was in such condition that Liath Beltaine at last extricated himself from Taion, and strode directly to me.

I had, by virtue of a combination of smiles and glares fit to sear flesh from bone, a little space by myself at the wall of the court that had sets of double doors, leading off onto many balconies with an uninterrupted view of the southern landscape over their railings; the doors were closed, the winter rain decisive and forbidding, but the greyness of it was a poignant reminder of _home_ to me, and standing still and lost in thought, I appeared a less appealing target for the harpies from whom I had so recently escaped. I had not accounted for how forlorn I must have looked, however, for Beltaine approached me from the side with a hunter's grin and a smooth comment of, "You seem lovelier than Amathiel herself, Lady Cymraele, standing there pining for the storm."

I did not have to feign startlement, blinking at Beltaine, turning my shoulders to face him. "Lord Beltaine." I nodded my head, but did not bow, as Kit had warned me. Diffidence would not cloak me well, but a certain studied ignorance of court manner? That, I could manage with ease, and even give some grains of truth unto the omission-lie. "You pay me a great compliment - I am, however, unversed in how to properly accept it. Would you have me quote _The Dynasty_ to you? Amathiel's tongue is sharper than rose-thorns."

"You would do her no disservice, I think," smiled Beltaine, his single cobalt eye focused completely upon me now, intrigued. "And there are many lords here who could scarcely complain at being abused to their faces by such a lady."

"It seems I've met _all_ of them this day," I said, rather archly, quirking one of my raspberry brows. "Sad to say, I haven't the patience for those who come unarmed to a battle of wits." That made him laugh, the smirk on his face tugged somewhat lopsided by the mass of scars below his brow.

"All the worse for them! You have the voice of a Chanter and the heart of a poet, my lady, but it is the candour of a warrior that suits you best." Too close to home, that bolt struck, and he paused, some thought, some test crossing his mind like a comet in the night sky; then he spoke in lower tones, neutral and foreboding. "The Prince told me of your predicament, my lady. My heart goes out to you."

I turned away from him that he could not see my expression, as befitted a young girl in mourning for her family, but though I schooled my features to the likeness of pain, the only thought that swam through the forefront of my brain was, _You have no **idea** what kind of predicament I am in._ "I would rather not speak of it, Liath. The pain is too near for me to bear, and I will be thrust into the center of it soon enough."

He opened his mouth to apologize, and then a ripple of aether spread throughout the court, the cloying scent of flowers sent out in a massive wave that made my fingertips tingle and my temples throb; I staggered on my feet, caught myself on a pane of the balcony doors, and my other hand rose to soothe the sudden pounding of my head. It was Ariel, it seemed, calling court to order at last, in a way that could not be misinterpreted or otherwise ignored. Beltaine noted my reaction and had gentlemanly words upon his lips, but I saw the gears working behind his blue eye even as Ariel's voice rang out acrost us all, her dulcet voice turned commanding.

"Lords and ladies of the court, Daevas and mortals, I welcome you all, and call the High Court of Sanctum into order. What business this day comes before the Lady of Light?"

The dais upon which she sat suddenly seemed to have a lot more open space about it, Elyos withdrawing from the front in order that their aggrieved brethren might reach their Seraphim queen; but dark-eyed Oros was there first, on his knees at the base of the white dais, and Ciel had appeared nearby as well, her silent grey shadow an imposing obstacle to surmount. I could not see Oros's face, could not determine if he felt as faint and overwhelmed before her as he had earlier in the day - and if he did, our cause was surely lost already - but when Ariel called upon him and bid him rise, he did so as smoothly as I have ever seen. Surely every eye was focused upon him now, much as I had been the center of the collective Elyos will only minutes before; if he felt the burden of it, it did not show on his handsome hawkish face, expression stony enough to rival unblinking Ciel in its severity.

"There is a betrayer in our midst," he said, his clear tenor echoing across the court now that the Elyos were united in rapt silence, and he turned gracefully on the balls of his feet to face them all, his back to Ariel. Only I thought to look at the face of the Lady of Light, saw the tiny, approving smile there. Oros continued unawares, his audience greater in scope if not in power. "House Cymraele has been decimated, but not by plague as previously reported. Some agent actively pursued its destruction, even into the heart of Sanctum." Where he had hidden the blade, I did not know, but between one breath and the next his empty hand of a sudden bore the dagger that should have taken my life, had taken my assassin's life instead. Its pommel glittered maliciously in the cloud-filtered light. "Some of you are aware that there was a mishap in the Furiae wing last night. The truth of the matter is that an assailant infiltrated our halls and made attempt on the life of Lady Cymraele, who has claimed sanctuary of my Prince, Taion Helios. Look well on this blade - I _will_ find its proper master."

He was the thunder before the storm, vengeance incarnated and clad in white leathers, a performance worthy of the one Taion himself had earlier acted out for Beltaine - but I could not stare overlong at him, instead sweeping my silver gaze across the faces of the lords, seeking the merest flicker of recognition or guilt. But so many faces! I could not cover them all and hope to find the one responsible. Ariel spoke then, backing Oros's claims, with words I scarcely heard; I was not the only Elyos who paid Oros and the Lady little heed, for while Kit searched from the opposite side of the court, I found myself squarely in the sights of an unfamiliar black-haired Daeva. No lord this one - the rust-red armor gave proof enough against that - but there was a certain malicious mistrust in his poison-green eyes, a passionate fixation as if he were imagining the thousand myriad ways in which I could violently die. The blood rushed into my temples, roared in my ears, and I scented something acrid, a whiff of probing aether that was hardly disguised in its intent to put me off balance. I broke our gaze off sharply, staggered a half-step to one side to place Beltaine between the Daeva and myself, seeking shelter without truly knowing the reason why.

Beltaine saw the movement from the corner of his eye, turned from the spectacle of Oros and Ariel to instead stare at me. His words sounded faint, as if he called from very far away. "Is aught wrong, my lady?"

"Who is that man, in the red armor?" I asked of him, my voice sounding desperate even to my own ears, and Beltaine turned to seek the target of my question. He must have found it, for his blue gaze was like a spear cast, sharp and suspicious.

"Captain Esrick Blood-Hunter, of the Queen's Wolves. From some legion in Poeta, I think. - Do you know him?" I shook my head sharply, breathed in slowly to calm my fluttering heart, but Beltaine's eye narrowed, mouth curved into a frown. "He certainly seems to know you."

"I swear to you, I have never seen him before in my life." Oros finished speaking, up at the front of the crowd; the next supplicant came before Ariel and Ciel as the gyre melted into the sea of Elyos, and I quickly lost track of his white-haired head. Suddenly, without Oros to command their attention, the focus of the curious nobility was upon me again, and the press of bodies drew closer, prompting me to shrink back against the balcony doors and pray for intervention from my scant handful of allies. It was not to be - a hundred thousand aether-auras crowded into my senses, until my temples felt fit to burst and breath became hard to draw. Now even the memory of autumn dunes, of facing down Ariel herself, suddenly seemed ineffective in bolstering my strength, and overlaid across the horrid weight of energy against my brain was that acrid taste, like acid burning through wood. I knew with grim certainty that Esrick Blood-Hunter's attentions had not been diverted from me for long, but I was in no shape to find out what grudge he held against me.

Beltaine, out of some misguided notion of chivalry, turned to the nearest wall of Elyos and ordered them back, a thing I saw more than heard - my ears were full of the rushing of my own blood, the beating of my own heart. Ariel alone, I had muscled through with help and pure cussed stubbornness - but I was mortal yet, and had my limits, which were now being sorely tested. My hand was half-numb as I scrabbled at the latch to the balcony doors, desperate for air, certain that I would faint right then and there before the entirety of Sanctum high society if I could not _get away_ -

And then a tall shadow threw itself across me, and when I looked over my shoulder I saw Oros there, a wall of white sheltering me from the rest of the world, face impassive but black eyes curious. I remembered his hair and shoulders limned in a halo of gold in the white-walled pit, remembered how he stood between me and the body on the floor of my quarters, caught between lamplight, moonlight and darkness.

I did not taste the autumn air this time, the acid of Esrick's aether was too strong in my mouth, but all at once, I could _breathe_ again.

Sound returned to my world, which did little for my pounding head. I heard Taion and Kit warding away the rest of the court, apologizing to Beltaine and those others who sought to question me in the wake of the revelations unveiled that day, assuring them that the Lady Cymraele was a creature yet in a delicate state, her constitution uncertain so soon after experiencing such tragedy - lies, all of it, but convenient, and I was hardly about to dispute the claims. "I knew this was a bad idea," Oros was muttering, ignoring the commotion at his back. "It gets easier, I swear to you. Can you walk?"

"I've rather little choice in that matter, don't I?" I said through gritted teeth, but the gyre patiently offered me an elbow, heedless of the watching crowd, of Beltaine who _stared_ with such vicious intent that I wondered what _ire_ he felt for the Assassin that Oros did not return. Perhaps it had something to do with Nico's own grudge against Liath Beltaine. I came off the wall nevertheless, my leg uncertain beneath me, but pain was a constant companion in those days, and I had learned to shunt it aside in favour of brief heroic efforts until I could founder in private. My fingers prickled when they found his elbow, the only sign I had to prove that aether was indeed pouring off of him in waves; I saw, as we hobbled together away from the court, that there was a faint scarlet light emanating from the crossbar on the black sword at his hip, reflected in a stain of the whiteness of his leathers.

Ah. The blade had something to do with it, then - and I resolved to find out what, in between ragged breaths as we beat a tactical retreat from the High Court.

My headache did not ease until we were well away from the noise and pressure of the assembled Elyos nobles, Kit and Taion having remained behind, their statuses disallowing an early exit such as I had taken. Once I deemed us far enough away from the carved double doors, I released Oros's elbow and instead leaned against the wall, half-limping and wishing with all my might that I had fallen to my death, or that the cage's cladding had held - anything but this crippled state, which did nothing for the cheeriness of my mood. "Will Taion be well, without you there to guard him?" I asked; Oros frowned and glanced at me sidelong, and said, "Trist is there, should some lord take offense to a male Helios, but any assassin would have to be a fool now, to try when Tai is in the spotlight of the entire court. I daresay he is the gossips' darling right now, he and Kit."

"Good. Aion forbid I take you away from guarding the life of an immortal," I growled, more to myself than to him, but he shot me a narrow-eyed glare, his gaze as black as death.

"A simple _thank you_ would suffice," he spat, and I saw then that my assailant's dagger had never left his right hand, was now absently twirling through his clever fingers. "I _should_ have left you to collapse on the floor. Never let it be said that any good deed goes unpunished."

"What was it you said, that paranoia was the trait of any well-adjusted nobleman in this court?" I shot back, in an argumentative frame of mind and more than ready to eviscerate Oros in verbiage if I could manage it. "Forgive me if I am unconvinced that your motives are altruistic."

"Do they have to be, for gratitude?" he riposted; clearly, the gyre was in no mood for complacency, and was having none of my sharp tongue. "If I _had_ let you swoon, the High Court would have been _far_ more inclined to sympathy, especially given the spectacle it would have made when one of us needs must carry you off to safer quarters." He snorted sharply, not looking at me, his heated obsidian gaze staring stalwartly forward, for the unfamiliar hallways we navigated. "Forgive _me_, great _lady_, for giving consideration to the fact that your dignity might not agree with such an outcome."

We walked in silence, his long stride a silken hush, my limp decidedly less so.

"Thank you." I could be gracious, I decided, and Oros had not been forced, nor apparently _asked_ to loan his aid in my cause. He risked a look my way then, suspicious of my sincerity as he had every right to be; then he muttered a "You're welcome" in tones that said he did not expect to win that battle so easily, and I let the matter drop, asking instead, "Where are we going? I don't recognize these corridors."

That, he had no qualms about answering. "Seeing as your rooms are still sealed, and _every_ Elyos in Sanctum will be looking for you there in any case, we are going to meet your instructor."

I scoffed. "What, in dance? Already? Nico hardly wastes time on such matters, I see." But I was somewhat off the mark, it seemed, for a smirk ghosted around Oros's mouth, as though something I had said amused him.

"She may teach you dance, among other things. That's _hardly_ the most interesting lesson she will teach you, however, if you're willing to learn."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" I said, just shy of accusatory; the only response to that I would receive, however, was a sly smirk and a "You'll see."

So we walked, and descended two flights of stairs, for which my leg did _not_ thank me for, and walked some distance yet, until I judged that we were roughly several levels _below_ what constituted the majority of the Furiae wing. Only then did Oros stop to knock upon a door, white wood painted with an indecipherable black sigil, and a deep, rough, but markedly feminine voice answered from within. "Enter, shadow-prince."

Oros preceded me, and I followed him, slipping through the door to let it click shut at my back - no aetheric seals here, simply mortal metalwork - and took in the room into which I had so blithely entered. It was a training-chamber, clearly, with weapons of every flavour mounted on the white stone walls, implements stacked neatly in the far corners, the floor covered with exotic rugs that tugged faintly at my memory. There was a figure seated cross-legged in the center of the square, low-ceilinged room, and when Oros knelt before it I saw it for what it was - a slender being, shoulders and hips draped in simple fur-trimmed leathers, orange-furred and darkly striped with a white face and belly, pointed feet decorated with many strings of charms carved from bone.

It was a Mau, a female of the race, and both of her eyes were hazed over with thick white cataracts, yet she stared unerringly at me, her sightless gaze more arresting than even the gyre's worst glare.

"Know me for what I am, you?" The Mau seemed to smile, flicking her furry rounded ears, which were perched high on her skull and ringed thickly with silver hoops, that clinked together with little metallic noises. Her accent in Elyan was thick, almost incomprehensible, and I would have had difficulty with it if I had not clawed my way into the language on sheer will alone. "Know you for what you are also, I." She tilted her head, gaze unblinking, and switched instead to Asmoth, in which her timbre was much smoother, though her sibilants were slightly hissed, her words rolled like a purr. "Remember you the tongue of your people, hope I? Come closer, aether-child. The door will hold itself shut."

Ice ran through my veins at her naming me thusly, but Oros did not seem to think anything special of it; with as much sobriety as I could summon, I came forward as bid, dropping into a curtsy before her, but the Mau clucked her tongue and lifted her clawed hands to wave dismissively. "Sit. I hear the pain in your bones. A difficult challenge, poses me the shadow-prince! But not impossible." I glanced at Oros, who smirked, and with a shrug, I sat in what passed for a comfortable position. The Mau nodded approvingly, then said, "Sara-shi, am I. To be your teacher, if will learn, you. A name have you?"

"Jaya," I answered, bowing my head. Sara-shi nodded once more, making a 'hmm' noise in the well of her throat that was somewhere between a growl and a thrumming purr. "A strong name. Where is the other half of you?"

I blinked, caught off-guard by the question. "What other half of me?"

"Not alone were born into this world, you?" She gestured vaguely in the air, affording me a glimpse of the white fur that lined her palms. "Other half of you. See it in your aura, do I, like a great festering wound. Sara-shi lacks eyes for seeing mortal seemings, but see many other things instead, do I."

I stared at her for long moments as I puzzled out her meaning, and then my alarm grew fivefold, watching Oros carefully out of the corner of my eye as I said, "I have a twin, a brother. He is... not here." Oros was also watching me covertly, enough so to know better than to openly react to my words; I had made him swear not to seek the knowledge of who I was, but it was a thing that was different entirely if I _volounteered_ it, or if Sara-shi pried it from me with her questions.

Sara-shi made the 'hmm' noise again, longer this time. "Unfortunate. A great loss. Ah well," she said in brighter tones now, rising to balance on her pointed feet. "A warrior once, you? Wish to be a warrior again?"

"If you will teach me," I said, rising to stand lopsidedly on uneven feet and feeling rather ridiculous standing there, still in full court finery, pins in my hair and my coraline heavy at my throat. Oros rose as well, and I saw that he was barely taller than Sara-shi, the Mau slender and lithe. I had only seen a Mau once before in the flesh and that when I was a child, a traveling male that had accompanied a band of Shugo merchant-kings and served as their blacksmith, but he had been much more bulky and squat in comparison to the refined leanness of Sara-shi.

She smirked, flicked her ears again. "It is not a question of teaching, will I. It is a question of learning, will you. Will you?" Her milky gaze was penetrating and unnerving, and I decided then that I would rather have had a teacher who was not blind, sheerly because such was making me uneasy. But Oros had endorsed her - and I could get the lay of the land if she accepted me as a student.

"I will learn." And as soon as those words fell from my lips, Oros began to step slyly away to the edge of the room, a smug sneer plastered on his sharp-cheeked face; I did not have the time to ponder what this portended, for Sara-shi laughed raucously and turned on the balls of her feet, ankles together, the line of her body rather resembling a willow defiant against the breeze.

"Good! Begin!"

And that was all the warning I received before she launched herself forward, claws aimed for my throat.


	15. Chapter 15

I would like to say that I was well-prepared for Sara-shi's assault - that I acquitted myself admirably and fought well the losing battle, despite my infirmity and unfortunate mode of dress, and earned the hard and unwilling regard of Oros alongside the respect of my newfound Mau mentor.

I would like to say such, but I cannot without needs must borrowing a liar's tongue. It is, after all, quite impossible to fight in full formal skirts.

Sara-shi leapt, the line of her slender form arrowing for mine, her clawed hands spread wide and her every movement a lovely economy of motion; with a sharp intake of breath I threw myself to one side, but she caught hold of the sleeve of my borrowed gown and we went tumbling end over end, the clacking of bone-bracelets and clinking of her silver jewelry over a silken flurry of damask skirts. We ended with me on my back, limbs akimbo and face flushed, Sara-shi perched on my chest, her knees pinning my shoulders, shins and pointed feet smoothed parallel to the floor and one set of black claws to either side of my face. Terror, primal and unwilling to submit to containment of will, ran rampant through my veins, a thing primordial and old, the ancient fear all Asmodian children hold for the hunt of the Mau, and if scenting my instinctual dread the blind warrioress leaned down and tilted her head to one side, sniffing delicately the air directly above my face. I could not move, could not so much as squeak out an exclamation of horror, so trapped I was in paralytic fear.

Sara-shi's feral face was hard with sobriety as she examined my scent in what seemed to be excruciating detail, her blind eyes filling my immediate world. My heart beat a hot staccato through my throat and tongue, pulsed in the scars at my shoulder and leg, and I managed to twitch one hand in ridiculous outrage at being touched. Oros, his black eyes dancing in mirth, raised one white brow and exhaled slowly in silent laughter at my plight, safely out of range of Sara-shi's antics from where he leaned at the edge of the room.

After what seemed at once both an eternity and the span of an eyeblink, she flashed her fang-toothed smile and rose, saying in her lilting and strange method of speech, "Lesson the first, this is." Sara-shi stepped over me, bent at the waist to offer me an outstretched palm; I sat up, blinking and somewhat trembling, to put my hand in hers and allow her to haul me to my feet. I was not precisely steady upon my legs, especially my traitorous and painful calf, but she kept the hand-clasp and set her other white-furred palm upon my shoulder, exquisitely balanced, her lean length effortlessly counterbalancing my lack of both height and grace. "Must feel the fear of the hunt, you. Forget it too often, the shadow-prince and his warriors, that all were weak as newborn kittens, they. Once, a time not long ago, too long ago. Not forget it, will _you_. Will you?" She tipped my chin upwards, a startlingly gentle and intimate gesture as the corners of her fanged mouth curved upwards in a smile, her wise and blind eyes crinkling at the corners, and then she left me blinking in confusion in the wake of it, stepping away. She did not have a tail, as I might have expected from the stories of old, but she walked as though the grace innate in her bones expected one - a certain cant to her hips, the pattern in her pointed feet, as though the missing appendage were expected to be slowly swishing from side to side.

"If that is the first lesson," I said warily, turning in my own footsteps to keep Sara-shi in my sights as she made wide circles about my form, my leg throbbing in distant agony, "then what is the second?"

She flicked one ear, setting the earrings there to discordant jangling, offsetting the low chuffing of a tiger's laugh. "Are not _ready_ for lesson the second, you. Is barely ready, he -" and she tilted her head to indicate the gyre, who came off of his wall to snort indignation at her commentary, before she stopped him with a raised hand. "No, no argument, shadow-prince. Do not see the world as Sara-shi does, you. Eyes for shadow are not _made_ to see the shape of the light."

His black eyes narrowed the tiniest fraction, but he did not protest, as Sara-shi had decreed. I felt my own raspberry brow rise, both at his restraint and the Mau's words, and those coal-dark eyes flicked to my face. Temper burned in their depths - he respected the law laid down in Sara-shi's words, but he did not _agree_ with it, and as the gyre's deadliest sin was pride, I had little trouble understanding why.

I wondered again who she was, this mysterious blademistress Mau, and how she had come to serve an Elyan legion in the heart of their greatest city.

"Brought straight from the shining court, you?" Sara-shi had returned her sightless gaze to me, and I caught myself nodding, parted my lips to speak, but she had somehow divined the motion, as she clicked her sandpaper tongue against the roof of her mouth disapprovingly. "Then blade-lessons must wait. In its stead, dancing, as the bright one has asked - I will borrow these clever feet for the lessoning, shadow-prince," she added as she padded over to him and put one clawed hand on his elbow, but before she had had the sentence completed, both Oros and I were rising from mild affrontedness to outrage, speaking over one another in the same breath.

"You _cannot_ be serious -" "Surely you jest, Sara-shi -"

To our mutual chagrin, she did not, and where Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night could not balk her, I most assuredly had not a _chance_ at protestation.

Adding insult to injury and taking an almost sadistic pleasure in our discomfiture - mine at being forced to such close proximity to the gyre, his at being appropriated for such a task without his permission - the Mau took what seemed to be a needlessly long time, obsessing over the smallest details before we even began movement: the exact placement of my hand upon his shoulder or his palm at my waist, Sara-shi and Oros both heedless of my fang-flashing threats to have a care where that palm precisely laid; the angle of shoulder, the shift of weight, the direction of the feet. Oros and I spent much of it staring one another angrily in the face, black eyes to silver, the sand-dune scent I had already come (guiltily, furiously) to associate with him furled close about him like a cloak. The scent of his aether had had time to dissipate, whilst Sara-shi had played at hunting me, but the narrow distance the dance required made it such that I could smell it faintly rising off of the bare skin of his neck, infused with the oiled-hide smell of his leathers. Lightning-jags of his mane fell down to brush his lashes, and I wondered briefly that I had never noticed before that they were white as his hair, sparse and pale to frame his night-dark eyes.

It was not that I had never been this close; the balcony in the rain, we had been nearer, his snarling mouth kissing-close to mine as we threatened and spat at each other like rival strays. But then, I had had greater concerns on that thunderlit night than I did now, when I had the luxury to stare down the accursed gyre at Sara-shi's lengthening leisure.

The black blade yet sat, acquiescent and silent at his hip, and though doubtless it was not his only weapon it was the only one that presented difficulties for the activity which Sara-shi insisted he help her teach and that I needs must learn; it took several awkward turns about the room before the three of us learned to compensate for the presence of that obsidian hilt in addition to my voluminous hemline, and then the problem became one of my clumsy angular movements, paired with the gyre and his boneless grace. It was as if a wooden block were attempting to match gliding circles with silk and smoke, and the longer I endured the humiliation the less able to withstand it I became. Sara-shi fussed ("No no, there is a beat, like a heart, must step _with_ not _against_, aether-child -") and Oros was all frosty poise, his sharp features far too close to mine for comfort, though he kept his touch as light as he could and still be in contact with my frame. I would have been more grateful for the consideration, had he not the attitude of a man who touched a thing disgusting and rotted, a thing that he needs must keep his most stone-carven face about him lest observers see the truth behind the mask -

A fracture in that iceborn visage; white brows rising in reproach when I stomped on his foot coming badly off my balance, _not_ apurpose, though Oros seemed to believe otherwise. I felt my mouth twist in frustration, a vile curse catching and tangling with the angry snarl in my throat, and all at once I spat them out, tore away from both gyre and Mau, Sara-shi's earrings clinking contemptuously at my back, reminding me to halt my hobbling step before I could reach that black-sigiled door and the empty hall beyond. My face blossomed flame as I became suddenly very aware of my mortification, maladroit as a bull-brax set loose upon the porcelain floor of a noble lady's high-tea court, and lifted a hand to cover a portion of my flushed and burning cheeks.

I could not do this. I was being made a mockery, a once-warrior twisted into a pet songbird to suit Kit and Taion's tastes, now a collared worg being taught to promenade for the amusement of Elysea's highest castes.

The image rankled more than I expected. I tensed the muscles of my traitorous leg, preparing to stride for the hall and lose myself utterly within its myriad corridors, perhaps beg of a guardsman to guide me to my ruined quarters and risk thrusting myself back into the apple of the gossipmongers' eyes. Anything other than this flaying of what little dignity I had remaining to my borrowed name -

"Jaya." The voice was not Sara-shi's as I thought it would be, but the gyre, with tinges of apology to his tenor tones. That contrition went unspoken, however, as the seconds stretched on in quiet, Sara-shi's jewelry making occasional clicks to fill the silence; I took in a slow, deep breath, closed my eyes, forced peace upon my features and the tension from my shoulders. My cheeks still stained red when I turned to regard the gyre, but I had banished some of the anger, the temper with which he so easily brought me to rein - and what I beheld when I turned was not the haughty Assassin-lord that I expected, but an Oros of sober mein, one hand extended, callused palm upwards and his clever fingers splayed. Not Sara-shi's meddling, this, as the Mau stood to one side with the pads of her fingers pressed against her contemplative lips, the other hand cupping her elbow; the gyre waited, still and calm, atonement in the gesture even if his pride would not allow him to form the words.

No coerced offer, this - he _asked_ this time, rather than allowing Sara-shi to press the issue upon us both, and that made all the difference in Atreia.

I considered, just for a moment, telling him off. A simple _No, I would not like to dance_ might suffice here, where out among the shining throng it would be impolitic, out of character for the noble persona I had adopted as my own. But _cooperation_ was a rare and precious thing, when its source was the gyre; the scene in the court had benefited both his image and that of the Furiae as a whole, true, but who in that low-ceilinged room would have told of his exploits in teaching an Asmodian to dance? Not I, nor he, and certainly not Sara-shi.

Skirts sweeping the floor, I retraced the steps I had so hurriedly taken, my hand hesitating briefly over his, before I made the compact anew. If Sara-shi would teach, then I would learn - no matter the instruments she chose.

It was easier, the second time, with permission asked for and granted on both sides of our mutual divide, and when the lessoning was over and Sara-shi retired to her meditations, the gyre and I did not speak all the long walk to Kit's quarters, where Oros shuffled over my custody to the Chantress and melted into the night without a further word on any subject.

Perhaps he, too, was mulling over the import of what was surely an impulsive, if way-smoothing gesture. It kept me long awake, curled in a pile of pillows in a quiet room at the back of Kit's suite, my temporary home until my quarters in the tower could be restored to their fullness.

Things continued in such a way for several weeks; in the mornings Kit and I would do what we could to recover what work on the Lay my unlucky assailant had undone in five minutes' fury with my office, then afternoons to court and evenings to Sara-shi. Not all days at court were as horrible as my first one, though I garnered few enough allies and no true friends among the jeweled harpies and armored serpents, but soon my lessons with Sara-shi became far more interesting and absorbing than those first awkward steps along her greater plan for my recovery of skills. Some days we did, indeed, dance, much to my dismay - but others we walked the length and breadth of Ariel's keep, or trained with blades ("Do not _need_ them to be fearsome, I," grinned Sara-shi the first time she tossed me a wooden sword, plucking up a larger one of her own with a much-scarred mahogany blade, "but sometimes do not _need_, you, does not mean should not _use_.") or we performed strange stretching exercises that always left me trembling in exhaustion, but exhilaration singing in my blood like prism-shattered starlight. Sara-shi found for me a tunic and set of leggings that would scarcely have fit a child of her people, but they were more than serviceable for the purpose for which I needed them, and her own sleeping-alcove was a secure enough niche that I felt no shame to slough off Kit's loaned confectionery dresses in exchange for more tomboyish fare. Winter in the south of Atreia was proving a tame enough affair that the skirts alone seemed far too heavy for even the mild chill of the air.

Always, the gyre attended us; Taion made good on his threat to post him as an overseer of my progress, it seemed, and it began to be routine, to leave the court some time before Taion, Kit and Oros had each made their respective exits, to change in Sara-shi's alcove and greet the evening and the gyre's oft-smirking face. Though he rarely participated in the stretches or the training - I yet held out hope that I or Sara-shi could draw him into a duel of wooden blades from his watchful post at the edge of the room - he walked with us as we explored Sanctum, a white-haired Assassin stepping silently across our long shadows, and he always _asked_ when Sara-shi decided that the evening would be spent in dance.

Almost against my will, I looked forward to the lessonings as much as I did my morning debates with Kit. My leg grew stronger with each passing session, and though the pain never completely faded, it began to shade away layer by layer, quieting down towards acceptable levels of bone-deep ache.

Court continued to trouble my days. Liath Beltaine pursued my company relentlessly, as did other suitors of less import - of some days the integrity of my schedule was tarnished by the presence of dreaded _socializing_, glorified excuses for the Elyos to court mates and exercise fluency in their language of touch and gesture. These Kit and Nico would receive in the mornings, while the three of us ate a hearty lunch in anticipation of court, and we would laugh over many, argue over some, outright reject a few, and then Kit would pen replies in her elegant and looping hand before the ink on the invitations was barely dried to touch. Beltaine had his fair share of invitations accepted - more when Kit felt he needed coaxing, less when Nico overruled her with her desire to rob the one-eyed noble of his pursuit - but always I had the final say; I declined all offers to balls and parties with dancing, publicly out of deference to my fictitious deceased family, privately because I hardly trusted my awkwardness to hold together my fragile reputation. I might pass for a roughspun country lass upon those lacquered floors, but a lady's finesse did not come easily to me, who had longed for training with a sword since I was old enough to lift one.

Oros's investigations turned up empty, the dagger unmatched to an owner and my assailant untraced to an employer; Sathas healed of his wound, and though he would always have a terrible scar, I convinced Trist to convince Kiert to allow the man an early release, and he and his brother and their fellows were excused of their celebratory hangovers by Taion, intentionally turning a blind eye to their antics. My guardsmen then mysteriously moved from my old door to Kit's, while I lived in her suite, and since I found it simpler to remain there rather than return to the tower-rooms where blood still hung in the air and on the stones, I persuaded Kit to allow them to remain.

They no longer called me ma'am or lady, my loyal pair - Kryson and Sathas both had seemed to come to the decision, independently of one another, that I was to be promoted to first-name basis. Though the nobler members of the Furiae seemed insulted by their familiar behavior, most notably Kiert and Terekai, I was flattered and made rather homesick by it, recalling the good hardy men of Carcarron who had served Raum's family no less faithfully than Sathas and Kryson did me, and who had always called me Jaya, watching over me in my mother's stead since I was a little girl. Most had died when she did, at Rivenstone at Elyos hands. What few were left had not been sent with the caravan to the Barrow, and for that I was almost weepingly thankful, begging Aion in private moments to watch over the good soldiers, who deserved a better fate than what I had brought down upon them with the melody of the Lay.

I had been Raum's right hand, once, and I had squandered the lives placed under my protection. I did not wish for these mortal guardsmen, my unwitting and ardent defenders, to suffer under similiar fortunes.

Such was the state of my affairs when I went to Sara-shi's quarters earlier than normal one eve, and was greeted not by the calm black falconer's gaze of the gyre, but by Taion and his sunlight-handsome smile.

My progress arrested, I stopped with the door half-ajar, one palm braced against the sigil and the other twisting my skirts up out of the way of my ankles; Solana, who had been laying near the wall, rose with silent gossamer grace to butt her cloud-maned head against my thigh, the elemental having grown larger and stronger with the onset of her native winter, her fur thicker and brighter, the nubs of her horns covered velvet in preparation for new growth. I tugged my dress inside the door and allowed it to click shut behind me, took a knee that I might thrust both my hands into Solana's cool fur and tousle her ears. She sat upon her hindquarters, pink tongue lolling in her silent grin. The cirrus-wisp that formed her tail could not thump against the ground as a mortal canine's might, but oh, how she tried, delighted as a newborn pup to receive my affection.

Sara-shi sat on the floor at the edge of her alcove, her legs bent, hands folded and eyes closed in meditation - I flicked my glance her way, and her rounded ears splayed backwards to sleek against her skull, and I took the hint that the Mau both knew nothing of this intervention, nor did she precisely approve. The Helios prince did not wear his court finery; somewhere between his exit and mine he had found black leggings and a sand-coloured shirt that laced at the throat, a shade chosen to compliment his blonde hair and owl-gold eyes. He smiled as he paced to meet me where I knelt with Solana, the soles of his boots soft across the floor, but I could not return the expression - the gyre was nowhere to be seen, nor sensed nor scented, and instinct compelled me to concern.

"Good evening, Jaya. Solana has missed you," said Taion, and he bent to rub Solana's velvet horns, affectionate and calm, the wind spirit leanining into both his and my touch, as though she itched terribly all over. His eyes were for his spirit, who was unwelcome at the court, but mine were for Taion's. What was he doing here? The initial brush of interest aside, he had displayed neither curiosity nor engagement with Sara-shi's strange training rituals since I had begun them. But Taion's presence in Sara-shi's quarters was not half as troubling as the absence of Oros, who never missed an opportunity to see me fall flat upon my face.

"Good evening, Taion," I said, with perhaps rather more caution than was strictly necessary. "This is certainly a surprise. What brings you to these rooms? Are you, too, to train with Sara-shi?" I held little hope that such was the case, since his appearance portended far worse, but I strove to convince my sudden-pounding heart that there was naught amiss, that nothing had happened to threaten my place in the Furiae. Taion's smile tightened somewhat, a flash of a half-grimace as he considered the words before they left his mouth; he stood, and so did Solana. I used the elemental to lever myself to my own, of a sudden unsteady feet.

"Unfortunately, no. You left court rather early, so you would be caught unawares, but there have been swift developments that could not wait upon formalities such as simple goodbyes - they have gone ahead without much in the way of farewells. I am here on their behalf. A poor replacement at best, at least in the arts of war, but better than none at all." An apologetic tilting of his head, but I felt my brows furrow, and interrupted him before he could proceed much further in his speech.

"They?"

"Ketterine and Trist, and Oros." There was a haunted, worried flicker through his golden eyes, his pupils dilating just for a moment, both his friend and his second sent - somewhere; he avoided my gaze now, but not out of disrespect, I think. Taion fretted for his allies, two of them cornerstones upon which the Furiae were built and rested, and the danger of their assignment much have been enough to make even a Helios aetheling worry for the safety of a trio of Daevas. "A scout arrived in Sanctum this morning, and Lady Ciel was closeted with her for much of the afternoon. You had left already, when Ariel called us to her chambers for a private consult."

I blinked and peered closer at his face; Sara-shi's ears flicked in our direction, the Mau attentive and the only sign of it the clinking of her earrings against one another. "Private consult? Why? What has happened?"

Taion took a breath, the last vestiges of his good cheer banished from his handsome face, and he locked golden eyes to my silver ones as he delivered news like a punch to the gut. "They have been sent north, to Asmodae. There is a new-ascended Asmodian Daeva at Carcarron, and he is raising an army."

In the silence that followed Taion's words, all I could hear was the pounding of my own heart, blood rushing through my temples.

* * *

So, I have been very assiduous in avoiding appending this story with author's notes, but this time I felt it necessary.

The Lay was begun in May of 2009, while AION itself was still in closed Korean beta. The setting, the lore and the intrigue fascinated me, as did the beautiful game-world and the incredible depth of choice when it came to character creation. These things lent themselves to the telling of a story, and that story had become the Lay. The early chapters are very quick and dirty, and will be eventually rewritten - they're painful to read for me now, but you can monitor the progress of my writing as you go through the Lay.

However, in September of 2009, I was fired from my job of two years. In the time between then and now I have battled crushing depression, bills, stress, medical issues and family issues that left me virtually barren of the desire to write. Even when I got a new job and managed to get most of my problems straightened out, I still lacked the drive to continue. I thought I would have to shelve the Lay and the story would needs must remain untold - I must have started and trashed this chapter at least a dozen times, trying to get back into the groove and failing each time.

Then, over the course of the last week, I managed to write everything you read here of Chapter 15. My voice is still shaky, but given that it's been almost a year since I wrote about Jaya and the Furiae, I may need a little time to relearn her fierceness, Oros's pride, Taion's quiet cleverness. I hope that I can continue to tell you the story of the Lay unto its completion.

For those of you who messages me during my long absence from writing, to each one of you - thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Without your encouragement and gentle hopes that I would return, I would never have found the courage to begin again.

This one's for you.


	16. Chapter 16

Throughout the long years, the many shifts and events that have defined my unsuspecting and perpetually surprising life, one thing remains an unchanging constant, an infuriating truth that cannot be altered: it is always the waiting that is the hardest.

My days dragged on, without Kit for company in the mornings, or even Oros and his pride-barbed tongue at my lessons of evenings; the shine on the novelty of my appearances at court soon tarnished and eroded away, till I was no more fascinating to the Elyos nobility and their Daevas than the gossip columns of Sanctum's circulars - which, with _great_ enthusiasm, Nico kept me abreast of every day at breakfast, valiant and doomed attempts to fill the hole in my life that had been left by Kit's sudden and unexpected absence. I missed her daily, longing for our spirited discussions, the ardor with which she defended her views, even the sparkle of mischief in her eye as she and Nico joined forces in order to tease me mercilessly. Nico confessed to me, of one breakfast, that she kept catching herself listening for the jangle and chime of the tiny bells Kit wore in tiers on her delicately pointed ears - and as soon as Nico related it to me, I realized all at once that I had been listening for the same thing, even when there were only two places set at our shared mealtime-table, and not three.

I missed Kit dearly, I own openly to the fact; I refused to admit that I missed Oros at all, even as the piece of my soul that delighted in the conflict that he brought into my life stubbornly demurred against the rest of my mind's wishes.

Of Trist, I am ashamed to say that I worried after him only because Nico did so. We were not particularly close, the albatross and I, for all his unsolicited and startling sweetness, his small kindnesses to me and mine. But how could we be? He could not speak with a voice I was able to hear, and though Sara-shi trained my body, she could not fashion of me a sorcerer or a Daeva, for there were, indeed, _limits_ to what the Mau blademistress could do. Despite my rather distant relationship with Trist, however, I spent time with Kiert when it could be spared, the Wanderer's - lover; I hesitate to name him such only because there is no word in this language for the bond between them, unsanctified by marriage but more ironclad than the Word and Law of Aion Himself - in any case, Kiert Fireheart was in need of the company, and I was in need of a way to thank him for saving the life of one of my loyal guards.

Kiert loved him, and Nico loved him, and he had been kind to me - and my prayers to Aion for safety were already well-crowded. I saw no reason not to add Trist's name to those for whom I begged safe passage on his mission, to go and return cradled in the hands of Aion.

Boredom was my worst foe, and one I had endless difficulty defeating; to the end of seeing it conquered, I, perhaps unwisely, accepted an invitation to a garden party on the grounds of Grand Duke Liath Beltaine of the Legio Fidelis, simply because I could not, and would not, hide from him or his attentions forever.

I had not counted upon being the _only_ such guest at the party.

Oh, the garden itself was lovely; this much I will freely grant Beltaine, his landscapers are perhaps the greatest in all of Atreia, and if Ariel had known about their skill, their passion and attention to detail, she would certainly have stolen them out from under him before Beltaine could so much as breathe. The invitation was for dusk - an exotic time to the Elyos, daylight's children, and while twilight held little allure for my Asmodian soul it was a great deal easier to withstand than the sun's full furor - and the courtyard of choice was a small, intimate affair, an organic circle of dark emerald moonflower vines coerced into twining thick and lush as they climbed ladders across themselves, straining for the skies, their soft silver flowers open to the darkening sky. Spikes of white arias, rare and precious, were studded across a carpet of green, doubtless placed precisely to mimic the effect of wild growth - and in the center of it all was the largest sobi plant I had ever seen, the leaves each wider than my hands, the rounded, nodding clusters of flower-heads as large as a man's torso apiece. The gorgeously cultured desert blossom fair _bled_ light into that darkened garden, each aether-drop of illumination like a pearl of whiteness among the play of shadows. The entire place was crafted to showcase the massive sobi, from the narrow footpath that led to it, to the careful clearing of the ground around it, to the unseasonably warm temperature and the simplicity of its surroundings - all the better to contrast with the sheer mass and stunning foliage of the beautiful plant.

Set some ways behind it and to one side, in a second ground-cleared area, was a small low-set table on an outdoor carpet, cushions in muted colours carelessly strewn around the sole piece of furniture. Liath Beltaine reclined upon a particularly large one, and as I toed off my slippers at the entrance of the garden that I might walk the path around the sobi with bare feet, the one-eyed nobleman rose smiling from his seat, gesturing grandly to the garden and its contents. I was somewhat surprised to see that, aside from Sathas and Kryson taking up posts at the entrance of the garden in case they were needed to safeguard my life or virtue, we were alone; and how I managed to keep both the surprise and suspicion off my face, I will never know, but I must have done it, for Beltaine's beneficence never faltered nor wavered. "Welcome to my sanctuary within the sanctuary. Beautiful, is it not?"

He was dressed altogether more casually than he had been, the previous times I had seen him - soft-soled boots, a loose charcoal shirt layered under a dark tunic, sueded trousers the colour of old blood, to bring out the scarlet shot through his long and immaculate auburn hair. For my own part, I had since been given a new dress in similar style to the grey-green damask Kit had procured for me, this one a confection in violet velvet with inset panels in lavender, black moonflower vines stitched in endless weavings around the wait and hem. Unfortunate alignment of symbols, that, as was the matching black moonflower comb with which Nico had (most reluctantly) piled my lengthening raspberry hair atop my head with, but Beltaine's one cobalt eye shone merrily, and in this at least I am confident that he was entirely genuine - his pride at sharing that unique and beautiful little space with a soul he felt might appreciate it almost as much as he did. That fierce joy was infectious, and I felt myself smiling almost to spite my own thoughts on the matter, the swishing and troublesome hem of my skirts held to the side as I navigated the narrow and arcing footpath. "It would be the most brazen lie to say anything other than the obvious, Lord Beltaine. It is lovely beyond description."

My balance had become exemplary for a crippled woman, in the weeks training with Sara-shi, and I reached the little table and its pillows and carpet without incident; I would win no contests for grace, but perhaps I might earn an honorable mention for sheer cussed stubbornness. I was just congratulating myself upon having made the walk without tumbling flat upon my face when Beltaine's expression changed somewhat, and not in response to anything I had said. "Lady Cymraele, please pardon the forwardness of the question - but have you fallen recently, or otherwise injured yourself?"

Curse his eagle vision, even one-eyed as he was. He must have seen the lower wrappings on my calf, as I was still loath to leave my scars naked to the open air. I cursed inwardly as violently as I dared, but froze my smile upon my face before it could be swept away. "A childhood accident and nothing more, I assure you." I dropped my silver gaze for only a moment to conjure demureness, a maneuver I had carefully copied from Kit, hating myself even as I executed it to perfection. It was a court harpy's underhanded trick, not the tactic of a warrior, but I could think of no other way to steer him clear of the topic without tipping my hand to the king of Sanctum gossips. "I would rather prefer that it remained undiscussed, Liath. So much having to do with my childhood and family is yet a sore subject."

"Ah, yes, of course. Forgive me, Jaya." He followed my shift in address with one of his own, eyebrows climbing up his face, and when he offered me a palm to guide me to my place among the pillows, I could do nothing but put my hand in his. It seemed like I missed the use of my claws with every moment of every Elyos encounter. "Please, sit. Would you like a cup of tea?"

I have little enough idea of what I said, though it must have been in the positive; such social niceties were soon lost to my memory, as a slender messenger entered the garden through a hidden portal somewhere distant over Beltaine's shoulder, and before my tea was half-poured the one-eyed noble had twisted to regard the Daeva with nothing more than irritation and scorn. The courier was a Daeva, this much I was certain - I could taste his aether added to the air of the garden, like mint carried on the winds that soared above the clouds and nowhere else - and his clothing composed of dull brown leathers, the better to streamline his shape against the hurricanes aboveground. The arm-sash and satchel that identified him, stitched with Ariel's sigil in blazing gold, seemed to give Beltaine pause to rethink the scathing comment he had been about to unleash upon the travel-dishevelled messenger. A royal courier, then, and not a mere postman or note-bearer. I found myself becoming more curious by the second as Liath Beltaine rose to his feet to tread across the soft carpet of grass, there to confer in silken whispers with the poor man, who was sent out of the garden with a jingle of coin and a disinterested wave of Beltaine's hand.

Beltaine's attitude was of ruffled annoyance when he padded back to me and our shared table, a folded and sealed square of vellum in hand. I did my best not to crane my head in order that I might see the symbol impressed into the scarlet wax, but I needn't have bothered; he sat himself down next to me, his long legs folding up as quick and neat as a paper bird, and skimmed the note's contents right then and there.

"What does it say?" I dared to ask, making of my face innocence and a merely scholarly interest in the contents of the letter; Beltaine blinked and looked up, for all the world seeming as though he had forgotten I was there. The lapse was momentary, however, as he laid the vellum along the table, between our mutual teacups, that I might peruse it for myself.

"The Legio Fidelis are being called to action by Lady Ariel. _All_ of them," he noted, his voice suddenly distracted, his quick mind likely working the logistics needed for a move of what was surely of massive scale. I leaned forward and scanned the letter, remembering Taion's wishes that I might gather information but not yet understanding how important this tidbit might yet be -

- until my eyes landed upon a passage footnoted onto the end of the official orders, in an elegant looping hand that was doubtless Ariel's own, or perhaps that of Ciel, her assassin-handmaiden. It was almost curt in its briefness, but so much was revealed in that simple sentence, enough to send my pulse to pounding and my mind awhirl.

_The forces of the Daeva called The White Dragon are more numerous than we initially assessed. Make all haste to defend Elysea._

My mind flickered a vision of Mishuvel's dragon, the broad sweep of her wings, her ruby eyes and thunderous heart, the flock of Daevas that followed her - Daevas of all stripes, creeds and callings.

This was impossible. Mishuvel had been the last of the dragon-winged Daevas, and the only one of her kind who bore white wings, dying by all accounts childless, miserable and alone after the death of her beloved lord, the magic inherent in her bloodline lost forever -

And the line of the princes of Carcarron had ended with Raum, with my failure to protect him. Avarran had had no other sons, no other children, for that matter.

_It can't be._ But there was a Daeva at Carcarron raising an army, a Daeva that three of the Furiae had been sent to scout the forces of, and now an entire _legion_ was being summoned to fight in Ariel's name. There was no great power-base at Carcarron, no bastion of immortals or even that of sorcerers; I could think of no reason why any Asmodian not born of those rolling hills and knife-edged tors would muster his forces there, gathering what surely must have been a legion from all corners of Asmodae - and yet, undeniably, one had.

One called The White Dragon, in the grand tradition of Mishuvel and her Lay, and for my life and honor, I was at a loss to explain _why_.

Beltaine was speaking again, something to the effect of how despondent he was that our conference must be cut so short, and of course I was free to return at my earliest convenience the next time he was within Sanctum, but that he expected to be deployed for quite some time, until the threat of open war was quelled. I made all the proper obeisances, expressing my regret and understanding both, for was Liath not a soldier for the Elyos foremost, and a man second? But a command from Ariel to 'make all haste' was not a thing to be denied, or underestimated; he left all in a rush, gears turning and clicking behind his single cobalt-blue eye, and if I was equally lost in reeling thought as I returned alone to Furiae territory, it was not without good reason.

I soon realized that even with this information firmly in my grasp, Taion would not yet be available to be told; the twilight heralded evening court, and royal banquet which he, as an aetheling of the Helios, commander of the Furiae and Ariel's nephew besides, was obligated to attend in its entirety. I instead sought Nico immediately, disturbing her at her practices with Sara-shi, and the blind Mau blademistress merely bowed her head knowingly when I arrived, releasing the shrike upon my recognizance. Nico was dressed in her practice clothes, loose colourless linens that left her legs bare below the knee and her arms free at the shoulder; at her insistence, we went a-walking, the better to let the sweat cool on her skin and allow her muscles to recover from their exertions. I had never seen any Daeva other than she at practice with Sara-shi, and I wondered if it was legacy of her common heritage - perhaps she feared that, without constant honing of her skills, that she would wither away like a mortal would. I did not know if such could occur, but Nico the Butcher was not known for her taking of pointless risks. The reckless, foolish chances she took always had a _reason_, after all.

"It's probably nothing, Jay," said Nico once I had explained the situation to her, her heavy wooden practice sword bouncing along on her shoulder with every step. We had taken our wanderings to the Furiae's library, where the air was calm and still and there was no place for Nico and her martial exuberance; nevertheless, she seemed well at home in it, and the deliberate juxtaposition of Daeva and environment made me smile almost against my will. "You know, I bet you it's some sort of codename they gave this new Daeva guy. Till he got a deed-name of his own, or just to try and intimidate us."

"I'm not so certain." I furrowed my brow, the thorny problem distracting me from my aching leg and sore muscles. Nico had graciously slowed her usual pace to match my hobble, but extended periods of walking yet plagued me with pain. I would likely spend hours soaking the leg to allow the knotted scars to unravel themselves, but if I could earn some peace of mind from what I had learned, it would be well worth this price. "The name is a very specific reference, Nico. It's not one that an Elyos would know the full impact of, at least before the work of translating the Lay is finished. Why would a Daeva choose such a name when the enemy would not understand its import? I think there's something else afoot here."

"Well, when Oro and the rest get back, we'll have some more information to work with," Nico said brightly. "Or maybe Tai knows something that we don't. I'm sure we'll get it all figured out here soon. Oh!" The exclamation was joined with a halting of her marching feet, at the base of a ceiling-tall mural that I had never seen before; we were in the deepest reaches of the Furiae's library, and while there were paintings and such upon every vertical space that did not house books, I had never paid them much attention before. The mural depicted a Chanter in the throes of a song from her soul, her head thrown back, her wings a sweep of blinding white against a war-torn sky, eyes shut in glorious exultation as the skyborne Daevas around her took heart from her voice - and all at once, I recognized the centerpiece of the exquisite work. It was Kit, without doubt, from the gently wafting waves of her spun-silver hair to the tiny, tiny chains of bells she wore in her ears - but it was a Kit I had never seen before, resplendent in both armor and song, an image of loveliness in the face of the horrors of war. Nico was smiling up at the mural, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "I haven't seen this one in a while. I'd forgotten it was here. The artist had the biggest hard-on for Kit for _decades_, you know."

I was mildly scandalized by Nico's choice of language, but I saw the evidence of it in every lovingly-painted line, the accentuated and slightly exaggerated curves of Kit's hips and plate-clad chest. "Why hasn't she just gotten rid of it, then? Or told the man to cease and desist?"

"Because it's _Kit_." Nico grinned it. "She doesn't even have the balls to tell Taion she loves him, how could she have the guts to brush off the gift of someone who admired _her_?" I stared for a moment at Nico's face, her bald confession of what was doubtless Kit's deepest, darkest secret, but she shrugged it off. "Don't gimme that look, Jay, you've seen how she looks at him. We _all_ know. Well, all of us except Tai, but that's a man for you."

Not for the first time with Nico and her brazen honesty, I was off-balance and searching for something to say. What came out, in the end, was "Are there other paintings here of her?"

"All of us have at least one. I'm not a big fan of mine." The sweet relaxed attitude of her expression suddenly darkened to a scowl, as if the sun that burned brightly in her soul was passed over by a thundercloud. "Beltaine commissioned it. I made the staff take it down, but Taion wouldn't let me burn it. Aion only knows where it is now."

An uncomfortable silence stretched between the two of us for long heartbeats, before I managed, rather weakly, "Do you have any favorites you'd like to show me?"

"Oh, of course!" Her face brightened up again, the storm clouds passed, and so relieved was I that I released quite a lot of tension in my shoulders that I hadn't even realized I was holding. She navigated the shelves with a competent ease that told me she spent quite a lot of time here, though in doing what I hadn't the foggiest, since Nico was not precisely the bookish type - but the impromptu grand tour revealed many beautiful pieces of art, including a touching painting of Taion at his parents' shared mausoleum, looking royal and grave next to the spectre of Ariel with her hand on his shoulder. An incredibly detailed sketch of Trist, his albatross wings unable to be contained by a single sheet of paper, stretched instead across a series of three frames on the far ends of three neighboring racks. A watercolour of Kiert tending to his infirmary, his hair pulled back into his immaculate braid, graced a small cul-de-sac filled with medical anecdotes and mortal texts.

But the most breathtaking painting I did not see until Kit led me into an isolated dead-end hallway, to where there was a little place like a cupola with a single chair, a curving bookcase and a window that nearly reached the ceiling. The view through the slats of that louvered window was doubtless beautiful, but mounted on the wall beside it was a piece of art modest in scale and ambitious in subject matter. It depicted a lithe, white-haired man with his feet apart, his leathers pristine, a familiar black sword in both hands, one set of fingers wrapped around the hilt and the other allowing the blade to bite into his palm, the slow drip of blood caught midair, the runes carved into it glowing with a darkling, burgundy light. At his feet lay the ravaged corpse of a Balaur lord, and behind him the sky was dark with storm clouds and fighting, but from his relaxed attitude, the slight, arrogant smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, he might never have noticed. His eyes were downcast and all but hidden from the viewer, only a tiny sweep of colour to mark his irises, and the plate etched below the work titled it, _Ourobouros Has The Last Word_.

"It's a pun," Nico said, startling me out of my reverie as I studied the hawkish planes of Oros's sharp face, the wind-ruffled dishevelment of his hair, the coiled strength that was little more than an impression beneath the painted lines of his leathers. If Nico noticed me blinking, hard and fast to remind myself of where and who I was, she did not speak of it. "The sword's called The Last Word. It was a weapon of one of the princes of the Balaur, till Ourobouros slew him in single combat and took the blade as his own." Nico sounded unaccountably excited; I was barely listening, something tugging at my consciousness, something I was not quite certain of.

Without knowing quite why, I stepped forward to closer examine the painting, staring at the lines of Oros's visage; and when it hit me, it was like a thunderbolt, like Aion Himself might see fit to strike me dead upon the spot. There was something wrong about the painting, and the knowledge of it made the bottom fall out of my stomach.

Ourobouros' eyes were painted _blue_.

I peered ever closer, certain that my eyes were playing tricks, that the uncertain light from the louvered window was casting strange shadows and making things paler than they ought to have seemed - but no; the harder I stared, the more certain I became. The man in the painting's eyes were _blue_, a cobalt blue like the sky after the sun had fled, not the fathomless black that belonged to the Daeva that wore the name - and what was more, I began to notice subtle differences that I had not initially seen, or perhaps had chalked up to artistic license. Oros as I knew him was slender through the shoulders, a silken shadow, while the man in the painting was broader of frame, a heavier cut of muscle and more dense of bone.

_Imposter._ It seemed as impossible as the notation of the White Dragon, and yet was as irrefutable.

"This... this isn't Oros. He isn't who he claims, is he?" I gasped out, and I turned to stare at Nico, her tanned skin blanching with realization of what she had done. Her lips parted to say something, anything, but what it was I will never know - for the rumble of a too-familiar voice cut across us like a knife scraping bone.

"No, I'm not." Large as life and twice as angry, Oros himself stood there at the entrance to that little cupola, his leathers ragged, stained and bloodied, sliced open in places. From the condition of his clothes and the mud and blood caked on his face and in his white hair, he was newly returned from his mission in the field, and had scarcely the time to pause before he came and sought us out - likely a summons from Taion, for whatever the scouting mission had been about. Seeing him there, however, catching us in the act of identifying him for who he was not, made ice slide through my veins, my heart pound in my temples. His black eyes _burned_ in his face with his fury, coldly contained, but his aether was left to roam unchecked, and it slammed into me like a tempest, the harsh, bitter taste of an autumn sandstorm, scraping and destroying all that was in its path. I swayed on my feet, caught myself on the wall before I fell. The library reeled around me, but Oros stalked forward nonetheless, heartless, merciless. Nico was paralyzed, frozen in place and unable to intervene when he snatched me up by the arm, tension in his every muscle, his mouth a rictus-snarl of righteous anger.

"And so help me Aion, Jaya Azhdeen," he hissed in my face, "dead Asmodians tell no tales."


	17. Chapter 17

I cannot remember ever being so afraid of the white-haired Assassin as when he dragged me from that library, black eyes lit within by the fires of his fury.

I do not remember much of the walk itself; it cannot have been so long, for Oros took short paths and abrupt turns through the stacks and out into the hallways, his strides forceful and bootsteps ringing out across the marble, but it felt as if a lifetime. His hand clutched at my elbow with bruising strength - I dimly remember gasping at one point that he was hurting me, and being summarily ignored - his fingers digging into the tendons and bone there, a forceful enough squeeze that I fancied I could hear my bones squealing under the strain, wondered if my arm would break before my treacherous feet gave out beneath me. My balance was already uncertain, due to my half-healed leg, and being pulled through the corridors of the Furiae compound like a kite in a gale made it so that I oft stumbled, banging roughly into walls and clipping corners as we moved far more quickly than my crippled state could accomodate. Nico followed behind us, protesting weakly at this brutish treatment, but she was as shocked as I, if for different reasons. I managed a glimpse over my shoulder at her face, perhaps thinking I might turn to her for aid, but what I saw in her mismatched eyes was fear enough to match my own.

The shrike, Nico the Butcher, feared in Asmodae for her battlefield prowess and lust for blood, was just as terrified as I was of the dark-eyed Elyos's undiluted wrath.

_Never_ before had I seen Oros so angry - not even at the rain-beset courtyard of the ragged bird, nor on the balcony where I had bargained for the safety of my identity. His aether roiled off of him like steam, like the desert wind at the height of a sandstorm, molten-hot and ferocious and almost _hungry_, alive like aether had no right to be. I was choking on it, unable to breathe through the pressure of it, as if with every breath I drew more and more of that sand into my lungs, felt it scouring me from the inside out until I would burst from holding it. My leg felt as if the bones within had turned to heated iron, my muscles prickling and burning from effort, every step an exploration into a new world of agony. It soon took all of my energy and focus simply not to sob with every precious indrawn breath.

A turn too sharply taken, and my knee collapsed beneath me, tearing a yelp from my throat; the gyre snarled a wordless noise of contempt and hauled me bodily upright on the strength of his arm alone, ducking his torso to throw me over his shoulder like a kidnapped maiden, and I continued the rest of the strident walk jangling along with my hands twisted into the folds of his leathers, suspended inverse with all the blood in my frame rushing to my head, my rump in the air, skirts akimbo and one of the gyre's gloved hands braced across the backs of my thighs, that I could not struggle nor fall. Fear gave way, if only momentarily, to mortification at not only being touched, but in so familiar a manner, and then I managed to scrape together enough anger of my own to demand that I be put down - of course this, too, fell on deaf ears - but it was easier to be furious rather than fearful, when I need not watch that tense, sharp profile, need not see the hard expression etched into his angular features.

I realized, after several long moments, that we were ascending a staircase; not merely _a_ staircase, but _the_ staircase, the warded and winding stone steps that demarcated the pathway into the heart of Terekai's tower, Oros's every step leaving spiderlike sigils and wards in crimson on the stone as he passed, as if his footprints were written in the blood of innocents. My teeth grit and my temples throbbing, I saw it as only fitting.

We reached the top blessedly swiftly enough, but the gyre wasted no time nor gentility upon divesting himself of his burden - he fair _threw_ me into the pit of pillows in the middle of Terekai's floor, as if he could not get rid of me swiftly enough, and for a moment I was airborne, Nico shrieking in warning -

Someone caught me about my middle, and rather more gently lowered me to the floor; craning my neck proved that it was Tristen Wanderer, an apologetic look on his sweet face, his scarlet curls a matted mess, streaks of dirt and soot across his face and his plain travel-leathers showing that he, like the gyre, had not even been given enough pause for a shower and a change of clothes before being summoned to the peak of the tower. Once I was securely upon the floor and in no danger either of falling or being thrown, he let go of me, bowing his head in a second form of apology, one I felt I could almost hear, before stepping away and flopping down into the pillows, his head coming to rest in the lap of Kiert Fireheart. The blonde Cleric was immaculate as ever, though I thought I detected the ghosts of dark circles beneath his emerald eyes, now wide at the spectacle unfolding before him, his hands moving to smooth the red riot of Trist's curls absently, as if from long habit.

Nico shoved Oros out of the way in her haste to rush to my side, skidding and kneeling in the pillow pit, her mismatched eyes enormous under her robin's-egg hair. "Jay, are you okay? Did he hurt you? Let me see -" and before I could stop her, she had my forearm in hand and was lifting it for inspection. My elbow and a section of my upper arm already bore red prints in the shapes of the gyre's fingertips and palm, the deepest of which were beginning to shade into indigo and purple. Someone made a soft sound, aghast; I glanced up and found Taion Helios, dressed in his sapphire work-tunic, rising from where he had been seated on the hearth. The concern naked on his face begged for me to address it. The lord of the Furiae had never been anything but kind and polite, when it came to my welfare, an Asmodian beggared of everything, even heritage.

"I am fine," I managed, though it came out hoarse and weak, result of feeling as though my throat were still filled with sand, and to make myself seem less the delicate flower I pulled my arm out of Nico's grasp, arranged my limbs beneath me in as comfortable a manner as I could, given that my scarred leg felt as if it were filled with red-hot wires and currently in the midst of attempting to twist free of my body. Taion nodded as he passed us, grateful that I was not truly harmed, but that did not keep him from frowning as he strode around the pillow-pit, to face up directly to the wroth Assassin.

"Was that strictly necessary, Oros? I asked you only to _bring_ the others, not to abuse them whilst doing so," said Tai, one sandy eyebrow arched up over his golden gaze. Oros bridled under that stare, and he flicked one heated glance in my and Nico's direction before stepping forward to meet the Spiritmaster headlong, his teeth grit so hard that I fancied I could hear the bones in his jaw cracking.

"Don't give _me_ that look, Taion. _I_ am not the one blithely uncovering damaging state secrets to an Asmodian spy," he growled, "nor decrying them where all and sundry may hear me." Taion blinked as he digested that scrap of information, and the Helios prince tilted his head, as if to realign the knowledge within into new shapes and coils of fact, like shaking the gems within a kaleidoscope.

"There is only one secret that could have you in such a fit of pique," said the owl, so very reasonably, "and in the spirit of complete honesty, Oros, it was only a matter of time before it was discovered." He rested a palm on the gyre's shoulder; Oros angrily batted it away, still well within the grip of his temper, but the gesture on Taion's part seemed to banish the cloud of hungry aether floating in the atmosphere, and all at once I could breathe more deeply. It made the twinned pains of my leg and head leap joyfully to the forefront of my attentions, but given the circumstances, and the fact that pain was my constant companion, I could not find it within me to complain. I could, however, find more than enough ire in my soul to be gravely vexed with the situation entire.

"Would someone _please_ do me the courtesy," I said in low tones, my opposite palm coming across to rub the forming bruises on my elbow, "of explaining _what in Aion's name_ is going on here?"

"My apologies, Jaya," said Taion as he turned from Oros's fervent black gaze, the gyre himself twisting away to stalk to a window and sulk out at the falling night, his arms crost his chest and his feet apart, an imposing silhouette against twilight; the golden-eyed owl ignored this show of temper from his second, instead moving back to his accustomed place at the hearth, despite the fact that Solana was nowhere to be seen to take advantage of it. Neither were Terekai or Kit, I realized after a span of heartbeats, the latter of which was far more worrisome than the former. "I take it you have already surmised that our resident Assassin is not all that he claims?"

"I, um, sort of let it slip. Sorry, Tai," Nico noted in a tiny voice as she shifted to sit down in the pillows beside me, her knees drawn up to her chest and the little shrike perhaps taking slightly more of the blame than was her right - but I could hardly hold it against her. Deflecting Oros's temper was a worthy pursuit, and my leg and arm would have cheered for her if they could.

Taion gestured dismissively. "We can hardly begin the briefing until the last of us arrives, in any case. I would rather this out in the open whilst I have the opportunity." He caught my silver gaze with his golden one, his gaze part rueful, part playful. "No deceptions. Was that not the oath sworn between us?" He gave me opening enough to bob my head in the affirmative before he continued, stretching out his long legs before him. "The truth of the matter is that Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night, Elyos Daeva and Assassin, has been dead for the better part of twenty years." My jaw dropped, mouth open to object, but Tai held up a hand to forestall any interruptions; perhaps this was the kind of explanation that would take long enough even thought sideways tangents spurred on by my questioning. "The circumstances of his end are not mine to tell, and that is _not_ a deception - merely a courtesy to the man who wears his name _now_." The gyre shifted at the window, scoffing softly, but Taion did not so much as bat a blonde eyelash. "Suffice to say that Ourobouros did not fall in a way that my exalted aunt believed worthy of his station, or his legend, and she instead saw fit to manipulate the situation to her own advantage, and have another step into the role. One of our most feared Daevas," he noted, brows up once more, "could not be seen to merely drop from the face of Atreia. It would have shown weakness, in a time that Ariel felt we could not afford to display such."

"Is there ever a time that the Lady of Light feels we _can_ afford to display weakness?" asked Kiert critically, snatching the words, it seemed, straight from the forefront of my brain. Nico snorted in amusement at the thought, a crooked smile beaming across her face. Taion himself flicked his eyes to the swan.

"Some spans of time are far worse than others. Do recall that we speak of eighteen, nineteen years ago -"

"Oh, yes, I remember now," said the Cleric, green irises rolled heavenward as he accessed the library of his memories. I was burning with questions and the desire to know, certain that some intriguing scandal lay just out of my reach, but I was sure for a moment that Kiert would continue upon that line of thought of his own volition - up until I felt a warbling pulse in my chest, a taste of aether on the back of my throat, and Trist lifted his head a moment to look at the other Daevas before allowing Kiert to soothe him back to drowsiness. That the others in the room returned the glance at the albatross-winged Wanderer meant that he had gotten their attention somehow, briefly derailed the conversation. Never had I wanted more to shake the lanky Elyos until his teeth rattled.

I had to regain the thread of revelation before it was lost to me once more. "That is all well and good," I noted, lifting my brows up under my bangs, "but the question remains - if the gyre is not Ourobourous, then, who _is_ he?"

Taion's head swiveled to the white-haired man at the window, leaving the decision in Oros's hands, and the Assassin shifted his weight from one leg to the other; though I could not see his face from where I stood, I could well imagine his expression, the hawkish frown of his white brows over those night-black eyes, the slow snarl as he weighed the truth against a more convenient lie. The air was tense with promise, waiting for the withheld answer - and just as I thought that Oros might give in and speak, I heard the clatter and scrabble of claws on stone, the only herald of Solana before the little elemental bounded up to the top of the landing, loping across the room to be stopped only by barreling directly into Taion's chest, making the prince laugh and fluff her great cumulus-cloud of a mane. She was closely followed by Terekai, the cyan-eyed sorcerer's normally wild hair contained by a red leather thong at the back of his neck, though wisps escaped the binding in places and gave a harried impression of his usually calm demeanor. My annoyance only deepened, denied the truth yet again, and by Terekai Nameless of all people - but I could tolerate it, in lieu of Kit's appearance, and I sat and listened for the tinkling of the bells she wore in her ears, waited for her to appear behind the sorcerer as he left the staircase and took up instead a place at the window opposite Oros.

It took me several long heartbeats to realize that there was only silence remaining on the stair, and that Kit would not be attending this conference of Furiae minds. It felt as though the bottom had fallen out of my stomach.

When I turned to look at Taion, his fleeting mirth at Solana's antics had drained from his face, which only served to confirm my fears, even before he spoke them aloud. Solana shuffled to lean between his legs against his chest, demanding the affection that was her right; he gave it to her unthinkingly, even as his face grew pale and grave. "I am afraid that the other matter will have to wait, for this one takes precedence, now that we are all here. Ketterine, as some of you have likely guessed, will not be joining us this evening."

"What happened?" spoke Nico first, half-risen from her seat on the floor before the words were well out of her mouth. "Where is she?"

"Carcarron," said the gyre at the window, turning at last to lean his hip against the sill, raking his black gaze across all those assembled in the sorcerer's tower. I gasped sharply in horror, and Nicolette surged to her feet, her hands curled into fists at her sides, the shrike's temper spiking to the forefront as she tempted fate in the form of berating the knife-winged gyre.

"You _left her there?_ You son of a _one-legged whore_ -"

"Nico, please," sighed Kiert, lifting one hand to calm the shrike, the other set of digits still stroking and smoothing Trist's hair, "sit back down. I'm sure that circumstances are much more complex than they seem," and as he said it he shot Taion a look that would have leveled a lesser man; the Helios prince took it in such stride as he could, however, waiting for Nico to reseat herself before he continued where he had left off, before the rude interruptions. If nothing else, management and leadership of his unruly mob of Daevas had well prepared him for the vagaries of politics.

"There was a skirmish over Carcarron," said the owl, his baritone flat and looking not at any of us but rather at a fixed point against the far wall, as if by staring into the distance he could either peer into the events that had transpired in Asmodian skies, or distance himself from them. "Oros, Trist and Ketterine accomplished their mission in the name of Ariel Lady of Light, a reconnaissance run and nothing more - but upon attempting extraction from the area, they were discovered by an outlying Asmodian patrol."

"We split in three directions," cut in Oros, his tenor sharp and low, like a knife to the gut. He too did not look directly at any of us, but I had the impression that it was less because he was avoiding our searching gazes and more because he was reliving the moment; from the look cast upon his hawkish face, it was not a pleasant experience to have the first time, much less the second. "They could not keep pace with Trist or myself - I lost them in the shadows of the tor, and Trist can outdistance any Asmodian born - but when we circled back to the rendezvous point, we saw that Kit hadn't been so fortunate." His clever hands dropped to the pommels of his swords, tracing the well-worn hilts without thought or command, merely something to keep his fingers occupied in lieu of drawing weapons and hacking down the wall in frustration. I could see it bunched up in the muscles of his shoulders, the stiffness of his back and neck. "There was a storm brewing over the moor, and they herded her up into the thunderhead. It was only a matter of time before they forced her to ground, and -"

"Is she dead?" I asked, my voice remarkably steady for the fear that nearly closed my throat upon the words; but Oros shook his head, and Solana rumbled like distant thunder, causing me to send my gaze in Taion's direction. The scholar-owl had enough spine to meet my gaze, at least.

"Worse - taken captive. I am sure that no one here needs to be reminded of what happens to enemy spies discovered in Carcarron," and Taion's voice was too calm, too level for the vengeance that my heart demanded. One of Nico's hands pressed to the base of her throat, and vividly and all at once I remembered Pentarus Lockstep, and how Avarran Carcarron had cut out his liar's tongue -

Terrible enough a punishment on its own, but Kit was High Chantress, the Voice of Ten Thousand Chimes. I felt it like a spear in my chest, the implications of a chanter with her skill and ability, bereft of her voice. It was the worst kind of sacrilege that I could imagine.

In the silence that swept over that tower, I could hear the wind howling through the eaves outside. None of us wanted to speak it, that Kit would likely be dead within hours, if she was not already; none of us wanted to say that if she managed escape, that death would likely have been the kinder choice.

Her laughing face floated before my eyes, a mental painting I held still from the last time we had spoken. We could not abandon her, not even to my former kinsmen. _Especially_ not to my former kinsmen.

"We have to rescue her." I lifted my silver gaze, swept it across all those present, saw the myriad emotions on the faces of the Elyos Daevas; Nico's blue brows had come down in a determined little frown over her mismatched eyes, while Kiert's own downturn of the mouth was more contemplative. Trist had propped himself on an elbow and had begun to faintly smile - Terekai was a sober observer at the window - Taion had tilted his head very slightly to one side, likely considering the logistics of it.

But it was the black-eyed gyre that I lit upon last, scrutinzing his tense expression framed by spikes of unruly white hair, the way his foul mood was reflected through the whole of his wiry frame. When he parted his lips to speak again, his tone was full of pride and disdain, the same gyre I had met that very first day when he had addressed me while I yet remained in my wooden cage. "'We'?" he sniped, and if the venom dripping from his clipped words were any more real, they would have dropped sizzling to the stone floor beneath him. "What is this 'we' nonsense? If you think that you are welcome on a mission of such importance -" he lifted a finger in point from where his arms were crost over his chest, "_if_ we are even allowed to embark upon it, because Ariel may view the attempt as an invitation to open war - then you are sorely mistaken. _Mortals_ have no place on the field."

"Loath as I am to agree with Oros in this instance," remarked Taion, his tone and expression apologetic, "he is correct. I will most certainly appeal to Ariel Lady of Light for permission to rescue Ketterine, and I pray that she grants the request... but if she does, Jaya, you cannot accompany us." The unspoken addendum was, _there is too much danger at hand_, and my pride bridled at the very suggestion that I could not pull my own weight on field of battle, cripple or no; but I was not the only one, it seemed, who felt differently than the pair of them on my abilities and usefulness to the Furiae.

"Now wait just an Aion-damned minute here, Tai," Nico barked, rising back up to her knees and giving her best narrow-eyed glare at both owl and gyre. "Carcarron's like Jay's backyard! If you want to get in and out with the best chance of getting Kit out alive, you _have_ to take her with us. Anything less's risking Kit's neck!"

"If intelligence on Carcarron is needed," noted Kiert calmly, his gaze sharp as he matched himself to Nico without hesitance or fear, "then it can be given just as easily _here_, in safe surroundings -"

"And in any case, we already have _another_ Carcarrese spy in custody, don't we?" noted Oros, acidly, his black eyes narrowing to slits.

Malice in my chest, and my lip curled back from my teeth, I stiffened my back and made ready to verbally eviscerate Oros as he so _richly_ deserved, but this comment sparked quite the argument between Nico and Kiert, the shrike coming to her feet to storm over to the swan-winged cleric and shout down at both him and the gyre at the window behind him, quite startling poor Trist from his much-deserved nap, his hands held palms-out in surrender. The albatross, dizzy and bleary-eyed, moved swiftly to one side to rub his face as Taion gently pushed Solana from his lap to attempt to intervene, the long-suffering and eternally patient Helios prince doing his best to calm down the proceedings. It was hardly working; swan and shrike only grew louder and louder as moments passed, until they were full-throatedly bellowing at one another, Kiert on his feet and their mixed aether in the air with their fury, fire and wind and the distant taste of sand still clinging to the back of my tongue.

I thought it would never end, that the pair of them would only get more and more voluminous until they shouted down the stones of the tower around us, but I underestimated the only person in our motley company that had not yet spoken on the matter. "Taion," said Terekai Nameless from the wall, his golden head tilted to one side and some unknowable expression in the tightness around his cyan eyes, "Ketterine Delaine is the head of her House, is she not?"

The squabbling stopped abruptly, Nico and Kiert just short of coming to blows, the shrike with a hand wrapped around the swan's blonde braid, the pair of them were left blinking at this sudden and confusing interruption; Taion was no less puzzled as he slid his gaze sideways to the Sorcerer, usually so quiet and close-held with his opinions. "She is, Terekai, as you well know -"

"As the head of her House, she is yet considered the _equal_ of a Helios prince, not his lesser - is she not?" queried Terekai. Tai's sandy brows drew downward, a pinscratch frown forming between them.

"Yes, that is indeed the law of the court -"

"And Lady Jaeyarithi nai Delainne, made _aetheling_ by your own insistence, is her heir, is that also correct?" His tone had slowly become more forceful than any of us had likely anticipated, but though Taion's quick mind was working at the problem more speedily than the rest of us, he had not yet arrived to the conclusion that Terekai had already worked out, and his frown only deepened.

"Where are you going with this, Sorcerer?"

"With Kit Brightwing missing, indeed, captured in battle and in Asmodian hands," and Terekai came off the wall to walk slowly to the knot of fueding Elyos, his left eyebrow cocked, "Jaya is no longer merely an aetheling. She is considered the head of House Delainne, and therefore your equal -"

"And if I am your equal, Taion -" I grasped it at last, almost shot to my feet despite the pain it caused my ruined leg - but I ended up listing to one side on my knees, my palm flat to my leg, a vain attempt to stem the upward stabbing of icy needles from my calf into the rest of my muscles. I made my point kneeling instead, Solana trotting over to nose my shoulder and side, my free hand accepting her tacit offer of help as I levered myself to my feet, my gaze level and never leaving Taion's face. "You cannot forbid me to go."

The owl blinked, scoffed softly through his nose - and then barked startled laughter, a smile appearing on his face like the sun breaking through clouds. "I suppose I can't, at that."

"Have you lost the last speck of sense you possessed, Taion?" growled Oros, he too coming off the wall, but not striding to join us all in the center of the room. His arms were not folded, nor his hands playing along the hilts of his weaponry, yet he still managed to exude a palpable aura of contempt for the lot of us - perhaps it was his desert-wind aether, or the Last Word that sat at his hip, its runecarved blood-black blade in torpor but still a presence in the tower I could feel playing along the edge of my mind, like a razor blade. "Trist and I barely escaped with our lives, and that only the two of us, two of the most skilled Daevas in Sanctum. _Now_ you want to trot out the Furiae entire, _mortals_ included? Why not have Sara-shi stand attendant in court, while you're at it?"

"I may, now that you suggest it," said Taion archly, though the rise of his brows and the upward curve at the outer edges of his lips gave lightness to his tone. "I think Sara-shi would do quite well among the court nobles. She taught a clumsy child like _you_ how to dance, didn't she?"

I can count on one hand the number of times in my life that I have seen the night-eyed gyre caught off his exquisite balance. That moment was one of them, dust-covered Oros sputtering incoherently where he stood, his angular features twisting with fury, his ears turning pink at the tips and his control clearly coming unraveled, such that I could taste the acrid backwash of burning sand without the slightest hint of effort. Nico bit down on her lower lip to keep from smiling; Kiert's hand crept up to cover his own expression, while Terekai coughed politely and Tristen Wanderer was innocently absorbed in studying the ceiling tiles. For my own part, I held my tongue and made my features cast from stone; I had won the field, for now, and there was no point in adding insult to injury. Oros and I had such a tenuous alliance as it was - ruined now, it seemed, by a misplaced word by Nicolette Sethes.

"Fine, then," he said, when he managed to comment - and though his tone was calm enough, his face held nothing but murderous intent for the smiling Taion Helios, the Assassin doubtless already plotting his revenge. "Go and speak with Ariel, as you have yet to secure her permission in the first place." Off the wall he came and stalked for the stairs, pausing only when he passed me, to stare menacingly down at me with his onyx-chip gaze. "This is far from over. _Jaeyarithi._" He somehow made my adopted name seem the blackest and most vile of curses; I felt my face flushing bright and hot as he stormed away down the steps, and could not have articulated the reason.

There was a well of quiet left in the tower-room, after Oros left - Terekai turned his back on the proceedings and paced back to his window, Kiert dragged Trist upright and quietly excused them both to follow after Oros, and Solana leaned her weight against my leg and hip, whining to regain my attention. I gave the half-grown elemental the affection she desired, but absently; I was aware of Taion tactfully padding to the window to speak in low tones to Terekai, ostensibly about the journey to Asmodae, and Nico rubbing the back of her neck near me and attempting to summon up some cajoling thing to say, but my eyes were for the staircase and the black marks, now fading, where Oros had crossed the upper landing.

Such _anger_ he held within his slender frame. I wondered that he did not burst from it, that he allowed it to gnaw at his insides, like a cancer.

But I would not soon have the luxury of contemplation; Asmodae, and Carcarron, beckoned, and I would be ready to rise to its challenge.

It was that, or forfeit Kit's life.

_Aion_, I prayed, pressing my eyes shut with the heels of my hands, _give me the strength to see this through._


	18. Chapter 18

Although I was chafing at the bit to go - Kit could not languish in Carcarron's dungeons forever, and I am not ashamed to admit I fretted like a wartime housewife over her health and safety, practically pacing a furrow in the stone floors of her rooms when I could not sleep - a legion could not be spurred to motivation so easily; there were plans to draw, supplies to procure, orders to be issued, goodbyes to be said, a Gate to be wrought - and permission to be granted. For the last one, Ariel gave Taion his rein easily enough when he asked for it... but there were _provisos_ attached to the official letter with which the Helios prince retained from his time spent in her company.

I ought to have realized something was wrong when, after his audience with Ariel, he summoned only myself and Nico to his office.

"What do you _mean_, you can't come with us?" blurted Nico when Taion delivered the news; the shrike was more vocal and feather-ruffled about Kit's capture than I was, as a Daeva blessed with a bottomless well of energy, and she flitted about Taion's taller form, on her tiptoes and at points practically clambering up the side of his lean frame, trying to read the letter either over his shoulder or around his hands where he stood leaned against the front of his desk. Taion bore her harassment with his usual grace and aplomb, the calm, benevolent mask of his station well-cemented in place. Whether it was an after-effect of treading in Ariel's wake or merely a mechanism to hide his concern over Kit, I could not immediately say. But his smile, when he gave it, was empty, and it was clear to me that his attention was not there with myself and Nico in his study, but in Asmodae, at Carcarron.

"My illustrious aunt," and I knew only from the mildness of his expression and tone that Ariel had given him quite the tongue-lashing for this incident, "has decreed that if an act of war has occurred, it was on the part of the Asmodians, for taking a Daeva of Sanctum captive." I had to fight to hold my tongue at that; at Carcarron, I knew, Avarran Carcarron would have decided without pause that an Elyos contingent in Carcarrese territory constituted an act of war by itself. I saw a mote of awareness enter Taion's golden gaze, however, the outer edges of the owl's lips twitching so faintly I was half-convinced I imagined it, but Taion was ever and always one of the cleverest among us. Crediting him some desperate humour in our dire circumstances did not lower him in my eyes. "But she feels that with the last true-blooded scion of House Delainne in enemy hands - no offense meant, Jaya -"

"None taken," I noted quickly, one strawberry brow climbing up my forehead, but Taion plunged ahead with the topic with a grateful not in my direction. The man was absorbed enough in sidestepping traps and landmines from outside of the Furiae proper.

"- the Lady of Light has made it known that she will _not_ risk the same fate of the first male Helios aetheling in centuries, in what she believes a foolish, if well-meant gesture." And that sentence gnawed at him; I could see it, creeping under his skin on spiders' feet, how loath he was to claim his heritage now, exalted as it was, and how it angered him that Ariel could so easily cast Kit aside, to decide she was a lost cause before the battle was yet to even begin. But his tone was even, his face serene, his frame loose and relaxed, even given Nico and her scrabbling at the letter in his hands. It was only the slight narrowing of his eyes that gave him away, and I daresay if I hadn't been looking for it, I might have missed the gesture entirely.

Nico finally succeeded in prying the parchment from Taion's fingers; the shrike stood stock-still, her lips moving as she read and simultaneously grumbling under her breath in disbelief at every other sentence, while I matched my silver gaze to Taion's. "So it's down to the six of us, then?" Granted that no one had been summoned to that office other than myself and Nico, but all the others were elsewhere - Terekai was laying the foundation for the Gate in his workroom, and Trist and Kiert were locked in their shared suite spending 'quality time' together, with express orders not to be disturbed by anyone less than Ariel herself.

Oros, of course, was simply nowhere to be found. Given that what I now knew about him had not provided me answers, only raised yet more questions, I was content to delay with meeting him again for as long as possible.

"Five, actually," said Taion apologetically, bracing his palms against the edge of his desk. "Terekai must remain here, in order to maintain the integrity of the Gate." But I was already nodding and rubbing my face, the reasoning why soon seeming plain and obvious to me, my mother's daughter and my brother's sister; a sorcerer maintaining a Gate, which was a rare talent and a very difficult working in and of itself, could not travel through his own portal. The mere attempt broke some of the fundamental laws of aether-magic - but it also meant that we would be without either of our resident spellcasters, and much as I distrusted Terekai and wanted to put my hands round his scrawny neck for the death of my mother, I could not deny that his presence would have had its uses in hostile territory.

Kit's rescue was paramount, and I could pretend to civility with Terekai long enough for her to be safe, if that was what was required of me.

But that didn't mean the issue was closed. Far from it.

Nico finally finished reading the letter, and once she had, she crumpled it into a ball in an impotent fit of rage and pitched it into Taion's wastebasket, only then looking back at the Helious prince, her blue brows fret as she crossed her arms to cradle her chest. "Friggin' Ariel. I'm guessing this means Sir Pissybritches is in charge?" She made a face at the very thought, and Taion tilted his head very slightly to one side, his smile losing some of the perfect symmetry that meant he was falsifying good cheer; the expression he flashed at us was a bit more like his usual self, and I was glad to see it, even in those darkening times.

"Oros _is_ my left hand, Nico. And with the absence of myself and Terekai, this will very likely be a mission of stealth, which is _his_ forte, more than any other in the Furiae. His leadership gives us the best chance of success." He flicked his gaze from Nico to myself, however, and if there was a touch of imperiousness there, I could understand why; Taion was not the type to lead from the rear, and it rankled that he needs must remain in Sanctum while the rest of us risked our lives to extract Kit from Carcarrese hands. "And you, Jaya, will _listen_ to him whilst you are there. I've little enough idea what trouble is brewing between the two of you, but it will be left in Sanctum while you are in Carcarron, or in the name of Aion Himself you will have _hell_ to pay when you return. Do you understand?"

There was an uncharacteristic sharpness in Taion's tone, and my pride bridled at being addressed as though I were a child and not a woman grown, never mind the idea Terekai had implanted that I was considered his equal while Kit was held captive; but I bit back my first response, and most of the words in my second, reminding myself sternly that Kit was Taion's second, and he was as worried as the rest of us over her recovery. Bitter, pointless infighting would not serve her cause in the slightest. "As Oros has so deftly pointed out, I am a mortal among Daevas." I hated putting it so baldly, even in close company, but it was incontrovertible fact, and I could not deny it or pretend that it were otherwise. "Besides," I noted sourly, my very words ashen in my mouth, "_someone_ needs to guard the tail-end of the Gate. If all of us are off gallivanting into Carcarron, or playing kite-me-round with this alleged Carcarrese army, we may very well find ourselves with no way home."

"There is nothing _alleged_ about it, Aion save us," said the owl, his sandy brows arching heavenward. "The Lady of Light does not mobilize entire legions upon _alleged_. Do tread carefully while you are in Carcarron. The army is, for the most part, mortal - my apologies, Jaya," and he ducked his blonde head in preemptive contrition, this time somewhat more absently than his previous notation for benefit of my pride, "but it is sizable enough to give Ariel pause, and more Daevas flock to this mysterious White Dragon's banner with every day that passes."

"Have we recovered any details about him, or her?" I said it with all the innocence I could muster, my face a study in carven stone, but Nico cut her mismatched eyes sideways to my face, the purple one paling to lavender in the sunlight pouring through Taion's study window, like a fountain of liquid gold. If the Helios prince thought anything odd of my interest, however, he kept it to himself, shifting more of his weight to the desk, leaning backwards somewhat.

"Only that he is, in fact, male," he sighed, rolling his shoulders in their sockets in a vain attempt to release some of the tension knotting his muscles there. "Oros and the others didn't see him on their flyover, unfortunately, for I would _dearly_ love to put a face to this name, but a few of the Fidelis that are already in-country have intercepted several missives from Pandaemonium that refer to the White Dragon in the masculine. Never thought Beltaine would be _useful_ to us, did you?" That last was a halfheartedly playful aside to Nico, who promptly scowled at him for the remark; I had yet to plumb the depths of that particular well of knowledge, but if Nico's distaste for Liath Beltaine endangered Kit's rescue efforts, I prayed Taion would rethink allowing her to participate in the mission.

Then again, given that I myself would be only participating through the well-timed exploitation of a loophole in Elyos law, perhaps I ought not pray too hard upon such considerations from Taion Helios.

The owl-eyed prince had turned his golden gaze to me, as my mind come to this conclusion; he tilted his head very slightly, some of his weariness falling away from him as if autumn leaves from a golden maple. "Is there anything you are not telling me, Jaya?"

Honesty was a two-lane thoroughfare. I had demanded no deceptions from him, and now he demanded similar of me, in his own gentle, tactful way. I spared a moment and a flick of my silver eyes to one side, to assemble my thoughts. "I am... attempting to discern who this Dragon could _be_. I am of the opinion that such a deed-name would not be awarded to a Daeva who did not hail from Carcarron, but my choices of theory are rather limited." The line of the lords of Carcarron - the line that had ended with Raum, Avarran's only child - had thrown Daevas once or twice in the distant past, but always in cadet branches of the family, cousins and more distant relatives that lived well outside the Twinned Duchy's borders. With Raum long dead, I could not think of anyone in Carcarron that was more likely to Ascend than anyone else; Carcarron had boasted only two Daevas, one of which, Pentarus Lockstep, lay in the Furiae's dungeons likely starving himself to death in despair. The other was Sryddan Redfeather, whose only redeeming quality when it came to leadership was that he was about as political as a brick to the face. That he had voted for my death at my trial seemed hardly to matter now, so far removed as I was from the woman I had been, kneeling on the flagstones and waiting to die.

Of all the other Carcarrese kinfolk in the vast lands of Asmodae, the only other I could accredit with the strength of will and the blessing of Aion to Ascend would be Jareth - but I was certain, in my heart of hearts, that if my twin had Ascended without me, I would have _known_. After all, if Jareth had gained the wings, he would not be merely sitting idly at Synedell while I was spirited away to Elysea by a troop of itinerant Elyos -

_Synedell._

My head came up sharply, and I stiffed my posture, looking Taion directly in the eye to forestall any skeptical questions he had about my errant lines of thought. "There is a magic Academe, at Synedell. It is several weeks by foot from Carcarron, up in the mountains, but only four days from the keep as the crow flies. If we are _very_ unlucky, they will have sent some of their students or faculty to Carcarron, to support the White Dragon's army."

That made the frown-lines around Nico's mouth deepen, and the pale tightness near Taion's eyes reappear. "Never mind _sent_. I imagine at an Academe like that, there are only too many young mages and priests who would leap at the chance to go to war, and to the Abyss with any edicts otherwise." He breathed deeply, let it out slowly, allowed his shoulders to slump. "My primary concern, now that you have raised this fact, Jaya, is not interference upon Ketterine's extraction - rather, that the proximity of such mages may disrupt Terekai's Gate."

"It _would_ be our luck," I noted with a mild scoff, one raspberry brow arched, "to rescue Kit without incident only to be without a way to return."

"Well, we could always go rift-hopping," Nico grinned, regaining some of her usual cheer at the prospect; I scraped together the weak second cousin of a smile for her, despite how the very thought sent my stomach flip-flopping. Entering an unstable rift in the aether was just as likely to deposit us in Balaur territory as it was to tear us all to pieces outright, and even should we survive the journey, there was no guarantee that we would end up _closer_ to Sanctum as opposed to further away.

"Perish the thought," said Taion, one of his hands rising to press forefinger and thumb to the inner corners of his eyes. "Now, Nico, if you would do me the favor of taking Jaya to the armorer? We can't very well have her traipsing into hostile lands in full court dress."

"Kit's battle stuff ought to fit her. I'm sure she won't mind if Jaya borrows some of it," Nico grinned as she took me by the elbow to draw me toward the door, a certain fierceness entering her smile; she was still the Butcher, after all, and the imminent conflict had her blood pumping. I must confess, I felt a kind of excitement as well, part trepidation and part eagerness. I had trained hard with Sara-shi for this moment, when my crippled leg could very well be redeemed by valor on the field. All other things aside, the prospect of a decent pair of trousers was a joy I cannot put words to.

"Oh, and ladies -" said Tai, briefly turning his back to us as he rounded his desk, sat in his chair to survey the snowy flurry of letters awaiting responses spread across his blotter, "- do me the favor of informing the others as to this development. I have quite a bit of paperwork needing tending."

"Got it, boss!" crowed Nico as she hauled me into the corridor, vaguely headed for Kit's chambers. She seemed awfully upbeat for the circumstances, and as I watched her with puzzlement in my expression, she turned to grin at me. "I call dibs on 'informing' Trist and Kiert."

That left me with Terekai and Oros, a daunting thought, and one that inspired rebellion - "The pair of them being locked away with the metaphorical 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door notwithstanding, why should you get the _easy_ job?" I said, my brows up again as her grin only widened in her heart-shaped face.

"Because _you_ don't know how to appreciate it best." She let go of my arm, briefly went up on tiptoe as she pressed her palms together, fingers splayed and mismatched eyes rolled heavenward, set her teeth in her lower lip. "Two of the prettiest men in Sanctum! All _disheveled_ and, and _flushed_ from passionate kisses and - other things," she quickly censored herself, grinning deviously as I felt a blush rise meteoric into my cheeks, gaping at the little shrike's open lechery. She continued on without pause, reveling in the moment. "Oh, the lecture I'll get for knocking on the door will be _vicious_, I'm sure, but it won't be the first one Kiert's ever laid on me. And Trist's so _adorable_ when he turns the color of his hair. Oooh, maybe if I'm lucky, Kiert will answer the door in his robe again!" She tapped her palms together and giggled, and I became conscious all at once that my mouth had fallen open in astonishment at Nico's brazen behavior. I shut my jaw with an audible click of my teeth meeting, blushing so strongly at the images Nico had conjured in my truant brain that I could feel the heat flowing all the way down to the base of my neck.

"You are a terrible influence," was the only comment I could manage, struggling to dispel the visions Nico had implanted in my mind; the blue-haired shrike laughed gaily and leaned sidelong to touch her shoulder to my arm in a companionable gesture, grinning like the queen of all fiends.

"Admit it, you love me anyway. Besides, Jay, you'll have it easier than you think. Oros is probably off sulking somewhere, so you don't have to talk to him, and Terekai is really a big teddy bear under that mysterious-sorcerer exterior." She was beaming, a veritable fountain of sunshine, and I could not pull together enough will to dissuade her from the notion that I did not _want_ to see beneath Terekai's exterior; I believe now that she would have ignored such a comment anyway, as she had ulterior motives even then for not wanting to be alone with the cyan-eyed sorcerer. In any case, that was the end of the argument, as Nico chose that precise moment to bid me good luck and scamper down the hallway, bent on disturbing the unsuspecting Cleric and Ranger at their personal activities.

Terekai's workroom was much as I remembered it, from my brief glimpses when first I crossed the mage-tear in reality to reach Elysea; a lofted ceiling, a wide, open space squared with smooth walls in hewn grey stone, well within the depths of Sanctum and thus not privy to such a thing as windows. Instead there were stepped iron mounts filled with banks of candles, dozens of star-filled stadiums wrought in miniature - I could smell the burning wax long before I stepped through the workroom doorway, and wondered briefly why here, of all places, mage-lights were not in force - but a moment's contemplation was all it took before it began to make sense. If Terekai were working such delicate magics as Gates, even the benign and near-ambient working of the mage-lights could disturb such a balance. The Gate itself was a far more permanent construction than that had been wrought on Asmodian soil - whereas the terminus of the journey had been stone and bone and branches, the origin-portal was finely crafted in marble and shining metal, a gibbous moon of exquisitely fitted white blocks caged in fine meshwork of silver, then decorated with copper and brass and gold, traceries of metal ivy leaves ringing the thing and giving it rather the look of a wedding bower.

Inactive, it looked rather harmless, even backlit by the banks of burning candles, but even in his native element and at peace, the creature that knelt at its base was decidedly less so. Terekai, blonde hair pulled back in its thong and chalk in hand, was circumscribing the gate-foundation with an intricate tangle of symbols and sigils, some half-familiar, most completely alien. He did not look up at my uneven step across the chamber, nor did he when my shadow fell across his work; the long sleeves of his grey work-robe tied back in the style of the Shugo, with a single piece of crisscrossing red ribbon around his shoulders and upper arms, his free hand picked up his hem as he moved across the flagstones, absentmindedly precise in his movements, careful not to smudge or smear his chalkwork. Jareth had told me once, on one of his trips home from Synedell, that elaborate diagrams were more mental guides than anything else - the patterns on the floor, or sometimes in the very air, aided the sorcerer in question to align his thoughts with the course the magic must take. Experienced casters need not use them - what enemy would wait while a mage sketched in the aether? - but apparently, the delicacy of the portal-working required it.

That, or Terekai was merely hedging his bets against the inhabitants of Synedell. I supposed I could, begrudgingly, forgive him for seeking every edge he could, given that I would be surging through that very Gate in less than a day's time.

He finished a curving, fractalesque arm of the design before he put his knee down, twisted upon it to look back at me over his shoulder. "Hello, Jaya. What brings you down here?" He was careful not to smile, judging correctly that it would only provoke me to temper, but his cyan eyes were curious - cursed, as most mages were, with a forever-insatiable need to _know_ things. His expression reminded me so strongly of Jareth that I felt my heartache manifest itself as a physical squeeze in my chest.

Slowly, so very slowly, I had been robbed of everything that I was and everyone I held dear. The beginning of it all could be tracked back to Terekai Nameless, to Rivenstone and the death of my mother, and for a moment I was so twisted up in both loss and fury that I could not speak, choking on both venom and tears.

I chose to distract myself from it with both my mission from Taion, and my loathing for Terekai, with mixed results. The raging fire of hatred I had once been able to summon with the merest thought had banked itself to smouldering embers in the face of events in Elysea, and what was meant to be acidic and coarse came out a growling rumble instead. "There have been some developments." I shifted my weight to my good leg whilst I penciled in the gaps of his knowledge of our mission; the sorcerer, quiet and calm, allowed me to fill the silence alone, the pale chips of his eyes unchanging, unblinking. The effect was disconcerting - likely intentionally so, which only served to irk me further - and once I had given him the specifics as required by Taion's will, I was more than tempted to turn on my heels and stalk back the way I had come. When my clipped voice ceased to speak, quietude ruled in that open space, only interrupted by the sound of my breath and the guttering of the candles in some unseen draft.

"Thank you for the news." His calm face studied mine, waiting, certain from the experience of ages that this was not all that I had delved into his personal work area for - and perhaps I ought to have walked away then, but I could not; that I was not already at his throat was an unexpected development in and of itself, but it also granted me a rare opportunity for answers, to questions that I could not voice to any other for fear of seeming the idiot.

The question left my lips before I had entirely framed it within my own mind: "Why did you help me?" It gave the sorcerer pause, and the inquiry hung there between us in the silence of the candlelit workroom; after what felt an eternity, he shifted his weight from one knee to the other, as if considering the weight of what he chose to impart before doing so.

"Because it is necessary that you go to Carcarron." I was a moment from asking him _why_ when he flashed me a bright smile, there and then gone, a beam of sunshine through a dreary fog - it was a foreign expression to me, who had never expected to see her mother's murderer pretending to cheerfulness. "Foresight is not the sole providence of Taion Helios, you know."

Suspicion drew my brows down in a hawkish frown, and I felt my eyes narrow the slightest touch. Although I could not deny that dreams had played a subtle, but unmistakable role in my tumultuous life thusfar, Taion's claims towards prophecy had invoked scoffing and skepticism in me, even when backed by Ariel herself. That Terekai now did the same would, of course, provoke my rancor. After several long moments spent in contemplation of my expression, his smile leaching slowly away, Terekai turned deliberately away from me, continuing his work around the base of the portal; I bristled, taking it for dismissal, but before I could stomp away he addressed me, eyes upon his work and knees on the cold stone. "You ought not hate me so. I understand why you do," and his voice was so _bloody_ calm that I despised him all over again, "but you oughtn't."

My temper spiked to the fore, against my better judgment - but when had better judgment ruled, in the affairs concerning Terekai Nameless? "You killed my mother," I spat back at him, my hands clenching, my nails digging little crescents into my palms and my teeth grit hard enough to make my jaw ache with it. "I was _nine_, sorcerer. Nine!" I felt a prickling in the corners of my eyes, but I refuted it - I _would not_ cry, not even for my mother, not in front of the monster that had sent her to her restless grave. Fury lent me strength; I borrowed it relentlessly, shuffling my grief away, locking it in the depths of my mind where it could not hurt. I had suffered enough humiliations at the hands of Terekai Nameless. "Do you even _remember_ her? Or was she merely another dead Asmodian to you? Just one more sacrifice to burn?"

I saw him flinch, ever so slightly, a subtle hunch of his shoulders and a tightening in the lines of his neck; then he stopped, turned and stood so that he could match his cyan gaze to my silver one, the chalk still held in his fingers, powdered white from chalkdust. His face was carved from stone, but Terekai's voice was surprisingly gentle. "Of course I remember her. Ashura Aether-Born was one of the greatest Sorceresses to ever live." He swept his gaze to the side, unable to hold my eyes for longer than the span of a breath, some unnamed emotion flitting through his irises. "There will never be another like her."

Hearing my mother's name - I had been _so_ careful never to utter it where anyone other than Jareth or Raum might hear, not in the decade since her death - was itself like a blow to the gut, but more than that, I saw something I had never expected to glimpse in the ancient-souled Sorcerer - _grief_. And no murderer I could think of would spare themselves pain for a victim a decade dead; only a precious few rivalries that I could summon to mind even fit such a description, and those were centuries-long feuds of blood and honor, the stonework-foundations of tales of epic proportions, destinies writ in in the eddying stars of the Abyssal Sea. What in Aion's name had _happened_ that I was so blithely unaware of?

"You... you _miss_ her." I blurted it, much as I had my earlier question; I was not entirely displeased to hear the horror in my tone, but as I studied him and the shame in his stubbled face, etched in eyes older than I could possibly imagine, the sentiment did not fade as I expected it. On the contrary - the more I thought about it, the more mortified I became. If Terekai and my mother had had a connection deep enough that Terekai still mourned her even now, even when he himself had burned her slender frame to ashes -

I had never met my father; my mother had, if the tales were true, been born from nothingness, and I supposed in my youthful conceit that Jareth and I had been birthed much the same way.

Presented now with an alternative possibility, I refused to believe it. For long, terrible moments, my mind refused to make the connection, and when it did, the world seemed to spin madly on its axes, of a sudden lightheaded and faint. I felt bile rise in my throat, saw my skirts edge backwards from Terekai Nameless as if he were a thing to be feared, my brain in a paroxysm of horror while my body began to default to one of the basest courses of action, that of flight. I saw, too, as the sorcerer turned and pinned me in his cyan gaze, halting my unbidden retreat, his grief all but banished from his face, a trace in his steady eyes, a tremble in the firmness of his jaw.

"Yes," he said, quietly, the peace in his tone at odds with the war waging itself behind his irises. Though we hardly resembled one another, we were alike in more ways that I desired contemplating - shackling emotion with relentless control. "I miss her. More than you will ever know."

Aion help me, I could not ask the question that begged to be spoken; I felt as if I were standing on the precipice of a black and deep abyss, and if I framed that thought in words - _Are you my father?_ - I knew in that moment that there would be no turning back, no unknowings, no unseeing what had already been seen. So frightened was I of that possibility, that the man I had spent ten long years hating with every fiber of my being could be one of the last relations I yet possessed in Atreia, that I had to shut my eyes a moment, grit my teeth, and lock it all away as deeply as I could bury it. It could wait. Aion willing, it _would_ wait. But the urge to inquiry could not be so easily assuaged, and instead I asked a different question, turning away from Terekai, pacing a half-circle around the fixture of the Gate, absently careful not to smudge his chalk-markings with my hemline in a way that only a sorceress's daughter could be. The movement put something of my back to Terekai, but I discovered that I was hugging my elbows tightly to myself, the gesture of someone who felt hunted, and slowly pried my icy fingers free. "Is that why you didn't reveal me to Oros?"

The Sorcerer took the hint, at least; he turned away from me and knelt back down to his chalk, the both of us perhaps taking refuge in not needing to look upon one another. "You are the spitting image of her," muttered he, half-heard under his breath, more to himself than to me. The next comments were stronger, clearer. "Oros is much like our Prince Helios - far too clever for his own good, or for that of anyone around him. You would have been little more than a hostage, if he had known who you were, who your mother was." He shifted a bit on his knees, his shoulders angling, like he had meant to glance over them and back at me but had thought the better of it at the last second. "We both know that you would never have allowed that to happen."

"No, I wouldn't have." My hands had been freed of my elbows, but my fingers knitted themselves together, tightly enough that the backs of my hands were white with tension; it was scarcely better than before, but it was an alternative I could live with. The inquiries kept spilling out of me, as though by speaking frankly to the Sorcerer I had ungapped all my long-healed wounds and were bleeding the need for knowledge from my mouth. "But I tried to kill you, once I knew you. You could have defended yourself."

His shoulders hunched, the tiniest fraction of frozen movement, as bare as the ghost of a whisper in the Elyos language of touch. "I would never harm you, Jaya. Not with my own hands, nor with other, more indirect means."

It smarted, this ill-fitting oath of protection, and I bridled beneath it. I could not keep the black snarl out of my voice, off of my now Elyan-slanted face. "You've already done me enough _indirect harm_ to last me a _lifetime_, Terekai Nameless."

"I know. Oh, Aion, how I know." Low, despairing and sad, but his back straightened, still refusing to look at me, staring instead at the dormant stone arch of the Gate. Terekai's shoulders slowly leveled, like a falcon smoothing the ruffles of its feathers, and I could all but feel him tucking safely away everything my presence had uncovered in his soul. "I do not - cannot, will not - ask for your forgiveness, Jaya, nor that of Jareth. I may never earn it, and I am at peace with that." For a long breath after that sentence was uttered, there was no sound in the workroom but the guttering of the candles and the scrape of chalk on stone. I bit down on the compulsion to fill the silence with my anger, waited until Terekai finished whatever point he was about to make. But the point never came; instead, he let out a breath, his robed frame seeming deflated, crestfallen, when he finally spoke again. "I will tell you everything you wish to know, after you complete your mission in Carcarron. That is a solemn promise, and one you may trust that Ariel Herself will enforce, should the need arise. But in order that you may safely go and return, I must now focus on my work. I will send a summons to Taion when all is prepared."

It was a dismissal, but a gentle one, and I was repulsed enough by our conversation and the thoughts it had engendered that I took the opportunity to escape most gladly; it was not until I stood in the entryway to Kit's rooms, hands on the door frame and flanked by Sathas and Kryson, that I was arrested fully in my steps, my churning, roiling mind having thrown a subtle phrase out of the discordant jangle of my thoughts.

There only precious few in Sanctum who even knew I even _had_ a brother - Kit, Sara-shi, Oros - and all of them had their own reasons for keeping the knowledge to themselves; Kit because she knew I valued my privacy, Oros because he hoarded knowledge and information like all spymasters do, and Sara-shi because all such information was irrelevant to a blademistress except in how it affected my abilities. But to none of them had I ever spoken anything more than a passing mention, fearful somehow that my loose tongue might put Jareth in jeopardy, even across the divide of between Asmodae and Elysea.

Yet, not only had Terekai known of my twin - he had said _Jareth's name_, something I had never dared given voice to on Elyos soil.

I had much to think about, as I sorted through Kit's things and searched for her battle-armor, my mind awhirl. Between this and the White Dragon, I had the distinct sensation that I was all tangled up in the undercurrent of a thing greater than myself -

And if I was not careful, I knew that I would drown within it.


	19. Chapter 19

In the days since I had left my towertop room with its divan, secretary and pelt-carpeted floor, I had become intimately familiar with the suite of rooms that Kit Brightwing claimed for her own; a High Chantress, even one of such a small legion as the Furiae, ranked well enough in Sanctum that she might be given a small reception area, a living room, a bathing chamber nearly as large as said living room, a luxurious bedroom and a well-appointed study. In the time since I had come to dwell there - Nico had, for several days immediately following the nighttime attempt on my life, referred to my presence in Kit's chambers as 'crashing on her couch' - the study had been converted for my own use, the desk moved against the wall, a section of the bookshelves cleared away and room made for a low bed, as well as an intricately-carved hope chest at its foot that both shrike and peregrine had delighted in filling with all manner of clothes for me. With such touches as a mirror wedged between two neighboring bookcases, my own personal washbasin on a cramped stand beneath it, and a wooden folding screen to delineate the half of the office that was for my private use, I could almost pretend that it was home.

Oh, the girls had done their best to make it more comfortable, of course; my faithful silver worg-pelt, one of the few possessions I had managed to rescue from Oros's zealousness in sealing off my previous appointments, had been delicately cleaned of the bloodstains I had inflicted upon it, and now graced my narrow bed. A section of Kit's books had been packed away or transferred to other suites - I knew of a fact that Kiert Fireheart had appropriated some of them for his own collection, when the need for space had become clear - and the leatherbound booklet of the Lay stood solemnly where they had been, flanked on one side by my hairbrush and on the other by the untidy sheaf of our combined work upon the effort of translation, stacks of parchment and scraps of paper, scribbled upon all sides and in every available space that would hold her elegant script, my jagged scrawl.

I had not touched them since Kit had left for Carcarron, and the mere sight of them felt like a blade through the base of my throat. I avoided them as adroitly as I could.

A brief dalliance behind the wooden screen, to doff myself of the skirts with which I was encumbered; from there I delved into Kit's bedroom, padding across the rugs and silken carpets as if a thief come in the night, and even though Kit was not in residence (and in all likelihood would hardly have objected to the intrusion) I was still acutely aware of what an invasion of privacy I was committing, my head down and flush hot on the back of my neck. Were the situation reversed, I would feel it a mild betrayed, and that I was borrowing Kit's things at Nico's suggestion - and Taion's behest - made it no less of one in my eyes.

Fortunately, I need not remain long within Kit's bedchamber; after the long autumn and winter months of writing and laughter and close coexistence, I knew the logic of her mind nearly as well as my own, and found her clothes chests with little difficulty. Her closets were full of fripperies - more recent in fashion than those she had trotted out for my country-gentry debut at court - and these I ignored, instead seeking the sole square-edged, steel-reinforced footlocker in a sea of frills, lace and gently-rounded trunks. Inside was her battle-armor, as Nico had predicted - each piece was wrapped carefully in panels of waxed silk, seeded generously with lavender to prevent moths from eating into the cloth and leather strapping. I could detect armor polish and leather oil under the scent of the flowers, along with the faint smell of aether, and I could not deny that their mere proximity stirred my blood. I was a child of a Sorceress and Daeva, yes, but battle called to me where magic did not.

There was something of a ritual in the donning of armor, and even after so long bereft of them the old motions returned with little prompting on my part; the High Chantress's war-kit was more chain than plate in places, true, but the weight pressing down on my shoulders through the underpadding was reassuring, and the set as a whole fit me as well as I could have asked, given that her proportions were more voluptuous than mine. There were no true greaves for the set - I was torn between feeling naked for the lack of extra protection, or thankful for the lack of extra burden upon my crippled leg - but the thick knee-high boots folded carefully into the trunk would have to suffice, in conjunction with flanchards for my thighs. The laces squealed in their grommets as I pulled the fit as tight as I could stand, grimly pleased with the pressure against my scars, the resulting dulling of the pain that was my constant companion. Perhaps I could convince Kit to gift me the boots when she returned -

Ah. _When_ she returned. Already I was thinking in absolutes - a dangerous habit, when the outcome of our mission was anything but certain.

Sobered and now attired in Kit's armor, gleaming white and silver beneath the polish and wax, I paced the length and breadth of the suite, settling the metal over my frame, reminding my truant muscles how to walk in plate and chain. The swagger of the sword returned to my hips unbidden, a thing I realized when I caught a passing glance at myself in the hallway mirror, twisting my mouth into a rueful smirk - and aside from the raspberry hair, I was a decent approximation of the High Chantress once in full kit, the whiteness of that armor seeming all the brighter next to my lily-pale skin, the red of my mane and lips. But for the first time in recent memory, my eyes were clear and sharp, liquid mercury burning in the planes of my face, and seeing myself there I felt some unnameable thing deep in my soul untwist, some knot I hadn't known I had unraveling, a tension eased, all unlooked-for.

I realized all it at once, standing there in Kit's foyer - that, even attired in borrowed piecemeal plate, I felt more at home standing imposter to a High Chantress than I _ever_ had in the shining court of the Elyos. I _belonged_ in armor and enroute to field of battle, no matter what Oros or any other said.

Some measure of peace gained from this revelation, I left Kit's suite in search of the black-eyed assassin.

Though I found him eventually, it was not without its surprises; to my own startled pleasure, I discovered that my lessoning with Sara-shi had rebuilt much of the endurance I had lost during my recovery, and that an hour of walking the city in the weight of the armor had left me feeling briskly exercised rather than exhausted and immobile, as I had expected. The sense of intrusion had returned when I stepped out into the brightness of the day - it was gloomy and cold, as befitted the tail of winter in Elysea, yet bright enough behind the iron-grey sheet of cloud-cover that I still flinched at the intensity of it - but though every instinct of me strained and strove to tell my brain that I was unsafe in the heart of Elyos territory, those I passed on the pathways and sidewalks scarcely spared me a glance. My heart thundered in my chest as a pair of Templars, replete in plate, first approached and then passed within arm's length of me, pacing the opposite way down the road; I kept my eyes resolutely forward and my face calm, saying nothing, and though the Asmodian soul that wore that stolen shape expected discovery, they did not so much spare me a cursory examination. I was mortal, of course, and in any case the aether that permeated every inch of my being was very thoroughly Elyos in nature - the only outward sign that I was anything other than what Ariel purported me to be was the coraline at my throat, and dressed in Kit's pearl-pale armor, even that was hidden from sight.

Terekai's work had held, against all expectation, and I was merely another face in the crowd, even out among the Elyos. I did not know whether to weep or rejoice, both free to wander where I might, and feeling the noose of the Elyos tighten about my throat, more a prisoner now than ever before.

Secondary to this realization, however, was finding that Ourobouros-who-was-not had gathered to himself the other members of our reckless venture out-of-doors. The place he chose was not far from Furiae quarters, somewhat to the south and near to where the Lyceum is today; in the time of these happenings, that structure as you know it was much smaller and nowhere near its current grandeur. Near the lip of the floating city was a small pleasure-garden, little more than a cheerful square of green surrounded by hedgerows and bordered on one side by the sheer drop over the edge - not a true concern, to a city where much of its citizenry could sprout wings upon a whim. Nico, true to form, sat on the guard-wall that prevented one from merely wandering blindly over the edge into nothingness, her robin's-egg hair let down to float in the breeze gusting in from the open landscape beyond and kicking her feet, heedless of the emptiness at her back. She was dressed much the same as she had been in Taion's office, her only concession to the season a cerluean cardigan thrown over her clothes and her feet bare; I had come to realize that in the tropical climate of Elysea, winter was considered little more than an inconvenience, much to my chagrin - I, who had been raised in Carcarron, with its harsh tors and its legendary deep-winter snows.

Kiert Fireheart was also in attendance, seated in the grass with his long legs stretched out before him, crossed at the ankle and his hands in his lap, his immaculate blonde braid pooling behind him - though his hair was perfect, as ever, he had dressed in haste, loose dark pants too long for his frame with the cuffs rolled up (I rather thought them more suited to Trist's lank) and a wrinkled button-down shirt. Both he and Nico were watching Oros tinker with some sort of strap-fastened contraption that Trist had likely been dragooned into wearing; the albatross took the poking and prodding with his usual calm graciousness, and as I approached Oros spoke to the Ranger in low tones, prompting the appearance of his long, long wings in a gust of concentrated aether that nearly set my head to spinning. Where Nico's were rounded and the gyre's were pointed and sleek as knives, Trist's were stout at the base and through most of the wing, tapering only at the ends, the great flight-feathers each wider than my hand, banded near the bottom edges with dark grey and tipped in a blue so pale that I initially took it for aetheric residue. On command, he flexed and flapped and swiveled those great wings this way and that; I misjudged the true length of them and needs must duck quickly to avoid the furthest reaches of his left wing as the feathers swept through the space where my head had been but a moment before, and the motion attracted the gazes of the assembled Daevas. Nico was beaming, a ray of sunshine on an otherwise cloud-dominant day, while Kiert merely frowned and adjusted his position in the grass, certainly in no hurry to rise to his feet to greet me. Tristen hurriedly folded his wings at his back - they were so long in proportion, even to his height and lanky frame, that their latticed tips rested in the grass - and on his face was apology and contrition, well before he bowed his head in shame, turquoise gaze veiled with scarlet lashes.

"So _nice_ of you to join us." To contrast, Oros's black eyes burrowed into mine, his tenor voice a discontented growl, and I knew within the space of a heartbeat that he had not forgotten his temper, merely stowed it away for a more convenient time. It made my back stiffen and my chin rise, stubborn in my defiance. If the gyre was so affronted that I now knew part of his secret, then he could remain so for all that I cared - I would not bow before or flee from his pride, never in a hundred years. But when I did not rise to his bait, either, he pressed his lips into a thin white line and turned his attention away from me. Sidestepping around Trist and the scent of his aether - ripe fruit, and spearmint, and the slender needle-sharpness of ozone in the upper atmospheres, where only the bravest creatures awing might dare to fly - I joined Nico at the wall, only I did not sit, fighting off both the urge to vertigo and the insane impulse to peer over the sheer drop on the other side, focusing instead on the slight burning of my muscles in my knee and thigh, brought on by the exertion of the walk. Perhaps I was not so well in shape as I had hoped, but Nico grinned at me encouragingly anyway.

"Did you talk with Terekai?" she asked; I nodded absently in the affirmative, then tilted my head to study both Trist and Oros, wondering at their activities. Both gyre and albatross were dressed in leathers - Oros's night-black, Trist in mud-brown, both with the details in the stitching picked out with white thread - but Trist had been outfitted with a series of straps wrought in cloth and leather of myriad widths and lengths, with quick-release buckles affixed at nearly every conceivable point of attachment. The thickest of the straps were wider than my hand, canvas reinforced along their centers with heavily-stitched leather, and they crisscrossed Trist's chest and encircled his hips, forming the basis for what my eyes eventually recognized as some kind of harness. A moment's more of study, and I could see that Oros had been kitted with a similar contraption, only that all of the buckles and straps of the exterior harness had had their slack taken up, the straps fastened down and the buckles as tight as they would allow on his slender frame.

"He will send for us when his preparations are ready. What is -" I gestured to Ranger and Assassin, groping for a word to use to describe the oddness of it all, and finally settling on an elegant "... _this_?"

"While _you_ have been off bothering the sorcerer," said Oros lowly, adjusting a set of Trist's straps as the albatross rolled one of his wings in its aether-thewed socket, "some of us have been seeing to the details of Kit's extraction."

I bridled at his tone, my lip curling in a patently un-Elyos expression; Kiert, disgruntled himself at having been roused, leapt in before I could eviscerate the gyre in prose. "Oros, if you so truly believe that the mission supercedes all other activities, _including_ our authorized downtime," said the Cleric with venomous force, one blonde brow up over narrowed eyes, "then I shan't hesitate to point out that it would be less a waste of our collective energies if you refrained from any further attempts to provoke Jaya into smacking the white right off of your face."

All four of us stopped in place, heads coming round to stare in shock at the swan-winged healer, his back ramrod-straight and staring intently at the gyre, no patience left for Oros or his fickle temper. One of Trist's hands came up to press his palm across his mouth, hiding his silent laughter. Nico had no such tact, the shrike bursting into a round of infectious giggles at the mental image that Kiert Fireheart presented, leaving Oros to glare dreadfully at the pair of them as I gaped in open startlement. His roving gaze met mine, his black eyes intense as if he were daring me to do precisely as Kiert had described, and I felt my ears and face heat as they shaded into pink, my colour high as I was more embarrassed than affronted by the very implication. Even I was not so reckless, or so stupid.

But the tension of the moment had broken, very likely exactly as Kiert had planned - in any wise, the Cleric leaned backwards and put his palms to the grass, tilting his head back that he could frown upwards at the blanket of steel that veiled the Elysean sky, while Nico and Trist both regained control of themselves, the latter with a sheepish smile for Oros, the former wiping at hysterical tears that had formed in the corners of her eyes. I envied them both a moment; it must have felt uncommonly good, to be able to laugh in those dire days. I cleared my throat before I dared address Oros again. "You were saying, about the details?"

It was an olive branch of sorts, if a feeble one; but though his pride was wounded by Kiert's comments, he accepted it with only a few moments' hesitation, glancing at me over his shoulder before he returned his attentions once more to Trist's harness, cinching one of the straps about the Ranger's thighs a touch too tightly, from the sudden spike of pain that passed across Trist's face like a stormfront rolling over unsuspecting countryside. "When we find her," and I did not fail to note that I was not the only member of this mission who spoke in absolutes when I came to Kit's return, "she will almost certainly be too weak to fly under her own power. We will be pursued from every angle aground by the Carcarrese militia, and from all sides in the air by this White Dragon's Daevas, who grow in force every day." He finished his tinkering and stood straight and tall, folding his arms over his chest as he turned to regard us. "Escape afoot will be all but impossible. The only other option is to carry her into the air."

"Trist has the most endurance of any of the Furiae," added Kiert, unmoving, his gaze still on the dreary skies, but his voice clearly for the rest of us. "If any of us can manage the burden and stay in the air, it is he. But the strike team will almost assuredly have to fight their way free, first of the keep and then of any pursuers."

"And you can't fight with your arms full of a limp body," said Nico finally, wincing slightly at her own phrasing once it had left her tongue; there was a long moment where the only sound in that miniature garden was the groaning of the wind over and through the Elyos architecture all around us, as each of us present in that place morbidly contemplated the phrase 'limp body'. Then Nico cleared her throat, her mismatched eyes skating to the side, one of her eyeteeth momentarily hooked against her lower lip before she spoke again. "The theory is sound, anyway."

"_Theory?_" I had barked it before I realized what I had done, and though Oros's face changed from a studied frown to calculated interest, I failed to heed the warning, plunging onward into what I had already started. "Theories are all well and good, but none of us wish to free her from Carcarron only to lose her to the landscape."

A smile was skirting around Oros's mouth - a dark, cunning smile with a palpable edge to it, the sort of smile a fox might wear if it had lain in wait for the hens, only to find that the henhouse had thrown open its doors for him all unwittingly. His eyes glittered with something that was not malicious in nature, but was far too close to it for my comfort, and the standoffishness left his frame as he allowed his hands to fall back to his sides, making his body language into a thing too bland and plain to easily read. "That _is_ eminently true, Jaya."

I paused, my eyebrows fret and searching for the barb in his statement; from Nico's sudden frown and Trist's puzzlement, I was not the only one seeking the trap in his seemingly civil and smooth words. The shrike was in such startlement that she leaned forwards and down, eyes on us but her voice stage-whispering and pitched for Kiert Fireheart's ears. "Did he just _agree_ with her?"

"That cannot possibly be a positive omen," Kiert noted in response, his eyebrows up and watching us carefully. Oros's smile only blossomed, a black flower budding from a dead tree, and I was too alarmed at the sight of it to reprimand Kiert and Nico for speaking of us as if we could not hear their sidebar conversations.

I was already knee-deep in whatever morass I had wandered into; unable to refute it, I instead waded further inward. "And how do you intend to address that, gyre?"

He swept his black gaze from feet to face, meeting my eyes with disturbing ease, that thief's smile still slanted across his visage. "You and Kit are of a height, are you not? Her armor certainly fits you quite well." In another life, from another Elyos, I might have considered that a compliment, but this time I scented the trap before he had quite closed the cage - after all, the only way to test whether or not the harness would hold a Daeva would be to strap one in and drop off of the side of Sanctum, plummeting hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet straight down if said harness failed. My brain arrived at this inevitable conclusion only a few moments before Nico and Kiert realized it; when I took several steps backwards in open denial of the idea, Nico was forced to jump off of the guard-wall to snatch up my elbow, lest I back myself right off of the side of the city and accomplish my worst fears without any help from Oros and his machinations. Even Kiert came to his feet, exchanging a privately amused look with Trist as Oros advanced on me, all grace and mischievous enjoyment of the fear that was doubtless etched in every line of my armored frame.

"He has a point, Jay," said Nico uncomfortably, and I cut my eyes to her heart-shaped face as sharply as if she had shoved a daggerpoint between my ribs. At my betrayed, outraged expression, she seemed hurt, but the gyre was yet smiling, a terror sketched in black and white. In truth, I did not believe even then that he meant me true harm - it would have been a colossal waste of time and energy, after all, to bring me thus far and then drop me off of the side of the city - but that did not stop him from having his fun at my expense.

After all, it was not the height that I was afraid of - merely the sharp stop at the bottom.

"No, no, and no again," I said, skittish as a brax-colt, gesturing with my hands to emphasize my point now that I could no longer continue my tactical retreat. "There is absolutely _no way_ that you can convince me to clamber into that harness and jump out into emptiness."

They found a way.

It took them nigh on to an hour to find the weaknesses in my mental armor, but the last, it came down to the (quite valid) argument that, should we rescue Kit and the harness fail, even with the assumption that she would survive such a fall, we would never again have another chance to snatch her from my former countrymen's clutches; when I pointed out, somewhat hysterically, that if it failed while _I_ was strapped within it, I could not simply unfurl my wings and catch myself before I was flattened upon the scenery, Oros flashed a ferocious grin that showed his eyeteeth in the corners, uncomfortably reminding me of the fanged, Asmodian version of him from my so-vivid dreams. "Nico and I will fly with Trist, as we will on the mission. Should something go wrong, we ought be more than able to come to your rescue."

"_Ought_. Oh yes, gyre, that is _terribly_ reassuring, given the incident that resulted in my crippling injury," I hissed through grit teeth. Sweat prickled along the back of my neck as Kiert Fireheart's deft, efficient hands buckled me snugly against the albatross, his torso to my back, leather straps fastened across my chest, then under each shoulder and around each thigh. The difference in our heights made it such that I was precariously balanced on the tips of my toes, and though Tristen Wanderer was, of course, unflappable at the strangeness of the situation, the anxiety of a fall compounding my distaste for being touched, I could not help but deeply desire that this little field-test be over as quickly as possible. I was enfolded in Trist's aether - could not have been more wrapped up within it if I had taken a cloak of it and cocooned myself inside. Every shallowing breath was stained with mint and ozone, and it felt like I would shortly have no room even for dark remarks at the gyre's expense.

But at my sniping, Oros's face sobered somewhat; his expression was solemn and strangely considerate, given his attitude towards me, but though he seemed on the verge of speaking, Trist, obeying some impulse or command only he could comprehend, put his wiry arms about my midsection and clamped one palm over the opposite wrist, lifting me off of my feet and striding for the city's rim. The gesture was meant to make me less of a dead weight in the harness, and therefore less an impediment to movement, but I reacted on instinct, my hands digging rictus-tight into the tendons of his arms as though I still possessed the claws I was born with -

He flinched, and I felt the warmth of new wounds under my bloodless hands, tasted aether and something else, heard very briefly a whisper, that might have been _Forgive me_ -

And then he mounted the lip (flares of aether to either side of us, in hindsight most likely shrike and gyre calling their wings into existence) and Trist surged over the side with one powerful shove of his legs, leaping out into the sky with a certain decisive abandon. I was unable to question or further explore what had just occurred, given that I was entirely too busy screaming the lungs from my chest, my stomach already left far behind us.

We dropped like a pair of stones.

The landscape below was vast - still green, even at the tail end of an Elysean winter - and seemed to stretch on into eternity, the continents ringed about by a sea so wide that I could not see its edges where it met the horizon; I am ashamed to say that while I remember the impression of enormous space, slight lines in the hills and meadows below delineating roads and the edges of fields and territories alike, I did not at first give it much of my attention. Terror held me fast in its black-taloned grip, and when I ran out of air with which to scream I drew a ragged, painful breath and merely started the process over again, weeping and keening and screeching such unholy oaths that I would feel embarrassed to relate them here in this text. Needless to say, I said things to sweet Tristen that day that I have said to no other, not even the fiercest of my enemies, with only the dubious comfort that my invective was torn from my throat by the intense roar of the open winds about us, making wordly communication all but impossible. Blessedly, after an eternity of unchecked descent, the albatross's feathers opened and came to bear with an audible _snap_ as the great span of them caught us in a stop that would have torn the wings off of a lesser creature, all at once returning gravity (and the pit of my stomach) to our plummeting forms.

The harness held, against all expectation, even if Trist's grip on his opposing wrist did not; the straps creaked mightily under the strain, the forces of such a sudden reversal of fortune far beyond what even such a cunning artifice had been manufactured to withstand, and there was a terrible lurching moment when I was certain that though Trist's fall had been arrested, mine would continue - but no, the buckles held. It was awkward, and uncomfortable, and far too tight of quarters for my tastes, but the straps held, and I do not hesitate to admit that I shed more than one tear in unabashed gratitude, all the beauty and span that Elysea had to offer sweeping by unappreciated beneath our feet. The shadow of Trist's wings was distantly visible aground, a stripe of darkness darting along the wheeling landscape; my wits returning as the fear began to fade, I craned my head, sought Oros and Nico in the steel-grey skies about us.

I found Nico first as she came alongside to our left, her rounded wings scooping great swathes air as she scudded along entirely too merrily for my taste. An enormously encouraging smile lit her face as her hair and clothes whipped about in the wind - it must have been cold in those open and merciless skies, but I did not feel it, wrapped as I was in the Ranger's aether - and Nico flashed me an enthusiastic thumbs-up as she strove for a position above Trist's massive wingspan, out of the backwash of his gale, which was likely easily enough to foul the progress of a Daeva so much smaller than he. Only when Trist's wingbeats had stilled, settling into a remarkably stable glide, did the gyre appear at Trist's right shoulder, black eyes squinted against the wind, his white hair blown back from his face and the tips of his knifeblade wings a translucent silver in the cloudy light. I caught his gaze only for a moment before he allowed Trist to pull ahead, the gyre falling back and up, the three of us forming a loose vee that I could only detect by tracking our shadows, for, as I was unsurprised to find, Oros flew as silently and gracefully as he moved.

My gaze returned to the scenery when Trist began to bank, a leisurely, wide curve that put Sanctum to our backs and brought the full loveliness of Elysea to bear upon my senses. If we had been afoot, I would have said it was as if we took an afternoon stroll, so gentle was that flight, but the Daevas three moved in practiced synchronicity even through the careful lap, despite no other visible attempts at signalling one another; it was a mystery I would have to ponder another day, however, for I was absorbed in the beauty of Elysea spread before me, a banquet laid at the feet of a soul who hungered for such unconditional loveliness. The Elyos are crafted to be pleasing to the eye, it is true, but no Elyos could match the wonder and scope of Atreia herself - the scholar Darine calls her Aion's greatest work, and suspended in harness on borrowed wings miles above the rolling hills and verdant forests, still thick and green even in the dead of winter, I had no choice but to wholeheartedly agree.

I drank in the length and breadth of the land as if its nuanced glory were water, and I dying of thirst. Though the height was great, I soon found myself forgetting entirely the chance of falling, committing everything within the range of my gaze to memory, certain in that moment, at least, that I would never see such a sight again. Daevas are blessed in numerous ways, not the least of which is flight - but before that moment, I had never considered wings as a vehicle for anything other than combat prowess, or perhaps swift travel when speed was of importance. That incredible panorama of Elysea proved indelibly that such perks were merely the tip of the iceberg.

But I was mortal, and the price of such borrowed gifts, for those as I, is that one must eventually give them back.

We spiraled Sanctum for the better part of an hour, Trist's broad wings beating only once in that entire span of time, the blue-limned tips of his flight feathers nigh on to touching on the downstroke, the albatross otherwise gliding on the buffeting winds; I felt the shift in the pit of my belly first when he began to angle upwards once more for the city, turned my head just in time to see the shrike streak ahead of us, a pale comet in the gunmetal sky. She lit upon the rim of the city as delicately as dandelion-fluff, balancing primly on the balls of her feet before she banished her wings and hopped down, making room for Trist and myself. The albatross was considerably larger that the shrike, of course, but that meant more mass, more momentum - he could not duplicate her feat, instead backwinging to slow our entrance into the green square, his feet and mine setting rather more heavily upon the grass than had Nico's only seconds before.

I did not see Oros come to ground; I was instead swept up in the sudden and very imperative _need_ to get out of the harness, away from the alien embrace of Tristen Wanderer that I had tolerated for the flight around Sanctum, bile and panic alike rising in the back of my throat. I scrabbled desperately at the buckles, won my way haltingly free, and then promptly went to my knees in the grass, eyes shut and fingers sinking into the cold earth, centering myself against the sickening sensation that I was still dangling in the air, revelling for several long moments in the feel of solid ground beneath my feet; my mind unwillingly began to consider the fact that the city itself, no matter how stable, was miles high itself midair, and when my stomach began to lurch against my spine, I quickly abandoned the line of thought.

It did not take terribly long to readjust to the solidity of the soil under my skin. When I felt ready to lift my head, however, I found Trist standing there, wingless, smiling sheepishly and rubbing the side of his neck with one broad palm; the straps and buckles of the harness hung loose and in disarray from his lanky frame, evidence of my rapid departure, but he was wise enough not to press the issue of contact with me, offering his free hand to aid me to my feet. I wanted to hold his actions against him, I really did - but the gift of that brief flight exonerated him for the transgression, just this once, and he seemed to know it as I put my hand in his and hauled myself upright, accompanied by the faint clanking and clicking of my borrowed Chantress's armor. His turquoise eyes danced impishly under the mop of his red curls, pulled loose from his braid by the wind, and when I was once again securely upon my own two legs, he released my hand and sketched a mocking bow, a tinkling, chiming pulsar of aether pressing against the backs of my eyes - his laughter, I realized after several long moments. "You are forgiven," I said, keeping the answering smile off of my face. Despite the terror I had felt, I could not bring myself to hate Trist for what he had done. "_This_ time," I amended, which made his grin crack even wider across his face, his outlook sunnier than the clouded sky had been for the experiment in its entirety.

"You did well, for first flight," Kiert noted, smiling from where he stood by Nico, the swan's arms folded across his chest; Nico herself was grinning exactly as widely as Trist, clearly exhilarated by the brief jaunt into open air, her wings banished back into the nothingness and her pigtails tangled and knotted around her face.

"Pray I do not find need for another," I quipped at both of them, making a show of staggering in my armor and drawing a bubbling laugh from the shrike, a curve in the smile of the swan. The night-eyed gyre was less enthused - and our eyes met after the words had left my mouth, he just then dispersing his grey, grey wings, his face stark and unreadable as the time-chiseled face of a cliff. As his feathers disappeared in a wash of aether, I tasted very briefly the desert sands and autumn winds; there was no force behind it, however, no scouring sandpaper harshness as there had been when he was in the grip of temper, and my mirth died unmourned as I watched him, mildly puzzled at what lay behind those so-dark eyes, under the jagged fringe of his white hair.

For a moment, it felt as if the whole world had stopped, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled as I felt a sense of being tested, of weight and measure and an intensity of concern that Oros had never before focused upon me.

And then his black eyes broke from my silver ones, flicking over my shoulder and deeper into the city; a slight turn brought the shape of my loyal Sathas into view, the sandy-haired Elyos bowing deeply at the waist under the combined stares of four Furiae and his self-appointed mistress, the tips of his delicately-pointed ears reddening as if he had been scolded. I realized all at once that this was the first I had seen him at his duties that did not take place either at my doorway, or in Kiert's infirmary; he always seemed the unluckier of the pair, in hindsight, always drawing the shortest straw in any situation possible. "Lady Jaya. Sirs, Dame Sethes." He straightened, his back almost painfully upright, but with a slight list to one side, perhaps still suffering from his own wound as I suffered from mine. "Prince Taion has sent me to gather you all. Terekai Nameless has finished his portal-work, and you are to report to his workroom within the hour."

The words hung in the air as if nailed there, hanging desperately in the space between us. "That was fast," noted Nico, with no small amount of surprise. Oros then said, "Dismissed, Sathas," and the soldier glanced very, very briefly at me as if for confirmation, before he turned and left us. I dared not move, dared not allow my visage to metamorphosis into anything other than cool, detached interest, else I would provoke Oros's ire. His pride could not possibly allow the perceived slight, that the soldier in Sathas saw my commands as greater than that of Taion's left hand, and a hesitant glance at his angular, hawkish face proved the estimation correct, though he seemed in the process of quashing it in light of our coming departure. Gyre, shrike, swan, albatross and I stood there staring at one another in uncomfortable silence until the echoes of Sathas's footsteps had ceased to reach our ears, at which point Trist made gesture with the blade of one hand and a tilt of his head, something even I could easily read. _What now?_

We had reached the point of no return, and I, most assuredly the least of those assembled, was keenly aware of it. I can only imagine the thoughts that raced through the minds of the four Daevas, especially that of the gyre, whose processes were ever and always beyond my reach.

It was he who broke that silence, with an eloquent shrug and a brave step forward, striding past all of us as he retraced Sathas's trail, the very picture of calm, fluid grace. Were one only to take him for the image that he represented, there was no cause for fear or worry, no uncertainty in the outcome of this jaunt into Asmodian territory; he was assured and serene, his steps silent, his movements like oiled smoke without even a creaking of his black leathers or a jingle of harness to betray the motion. "No time like the present, I suppose."

But my eyes saw that his clever hands were worrying at his sword-hilts, and the Last Word sat baleful and quiet at his hip, the grim, dark spectre of a thing lying in wait.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Just as a warning - this chapter is_ humongous_. It tips the scales at 72k raw text, and almost 14k words. I was originally going to split it into two chapters, but I didn't have any place within the meat of the text to do so that wasn't incredibly awkward. So, my apologies ahead of time!

This chapter is also dedicated to the Youtube video of Steven Sharp Nelson's Moonlight, because I had it playing on loop the entire time it was being written. This song also happens to be Oros's theme - check it out if you have time!

* * *

There seemed no point in delaying the inevitable.

Once the dreaded announcement was made, there was no further discussion, no talk of planning or predictions or even of the anxiousness I detected in those around me - in Trist's tense shoulders, in the way Kiert fiddled with the tail of his braid, in how Nico endlessly smoothed her clothes flat against her lithe frame. Most worrisome was Oros, and the way he traced his sword-hilts and touched the buckles on his harness, reminding himself where his smaller weapons were hidden in the folds of his leathers - and how the Last Word seemed to pulse eagerly under his fingertips, a hunting hound baying for the call to be loosed upon the unsuspecting prey. I was becoming increasingly convinced that the black runeblade was, if not sentient, at the very least aware of the world around it in some fashion; being a Balaur blade, that it seemed to feed upon our unspoken fear came as no surprise, and as we walked it left a vacuum of aether in its wake, a cold, naked harshness across my senses that gave me pause and staggered my uneven gait. If it bothered the Daevas, or indeed if they even noticed, they paid it no heed and gave it no thought. The only hint that anything at all was amiss was when Nico slid her mismatched eyes sideways to mine, as if ensuring that I was in no danger of falling, and I lifted my chin and continued, jaw stubborn and brows fret.

We did not need direction; not a one of us were unaware of where we needed to go. As one creature, the five of us - Oros at the lead, Kiert and Trist palm to palm in his shadow, and Nico keeping pace with my limping step at the rear - returned to Terekai's workshop, striding from cloud-filtered light and openness into the claustrophobic shadow of Sanctum's stone corridors. I missed the scent of free air almost as soon as I had passed from it; my step faltered very slightly as I registered the fact, that already I seemed to consider the Elyos city as much freedom as I would ever be allowed, but the shrike steadied me with a hand at my elbow, and down into the depths we plumbed, retracing the steps I had taken only hours earlier, with the side addition of brief passage through the armory, to retrieve Kiert's mace, as well as Nico's armor and axe, and Trist's bow, both of the latter of which were longer than the little shrike was tall.

The workroom was much the same as it had been when I had abandoned the Sorcerer and the contemplations of the past that he engendered in my brittle heart. Terekai still knelt on the flagstones, a differing place from where I had left him, of course, and the intricate branches of the chalk diagrams on the floor not only surrounded the portal-seat but the sorcerer himself - they were a fractal-forest of markings in stark white, striping the marble as if they were weals long healed and become pale with age. The artist of this purposeful patterning sat on his heels with his knees apart, palms pressed flat to his thighs, his bright gaze shuttered with concentration and his head tipped slightly forward. If he heard our entrance, he gave no visible sign of it, except perhaps a deepening of his tracery of a frown, of the vertical line between his eyebrows, the slight pendulum of a stray piece of golden hair fringing over one eyebrow. Taion stood in attendance, well back from the edge of the chalk as though it were a thing to be respected and feared, his arms folded across his chest as he studied one of the banks of candles - the servants of Sanctum had clearly been forbidden entrance to tend them whilst Terekai worked, for wax was caked across the metal stands and pooled on the floor beneath, and Solana strayed from her master's side to sniff it, her tail low and her cirrus-cloud mane smoothed along her shoulders, seeming even to my untrained eye skittish and nervy. The elemental was an effective a barometer for Taion's mood as I have ever known, reliably reflecting his inner turmoil, and she did not fail me now, even though the Helios prince's face was regal and grave when he turned upon the balls of his feet to regard us.

Oros nodded his head only briefly to Taion as he took up a position directly in front of the portal, the marble-and-gold arch faintly radiating power, but not yet a rend in the fabric of reality. The rest of us fanned behind him, his white hair haloed orange and gold in the dimming candlelight, his back arrow-straight and his shoulders steady. I stood furthest to the left of Oros, leaning heavily upon my good leg; I let my eyes skate across the others, Nico biting her lip next to me, Kiert and Trist still hand in hand on the gyre's far side. Oros was not concerned with us, however, his night-black eyes fixed upon the portal with a clarity of purpose I had never before seen writ naked across his handsome face. I could make no mistake; Oros belonged upon a battlefield just as much as I did in armor, and he came to the moment with a strange, ferocious serenity that I have never seen matched in all my years since. "On your mark, sorcerer," said Oros, and Taion shifted his weight in discomfort, speaking before Terekai could.

"Be swift," impelled the golden-eyed owl, to all of us ostensibly but to Oros most of all; the gyre, bereft of a witty riposte, only nodded his head the tiniest fraction, his shoulders tensing, moving slightly down and forward, as if he were preparing to splay wide wings that he did not at that moment wear. But it was a gesture of readiness, all the same, and when Terekai's head tilted slowly to the side, his face in rapt focus as if listening to some complexity of melody that only he could hear, Oros was more prepared than any of us for the portal to flare to life.

It happened all at once, an explosion of aether and colour and heat and noise and scent - one moment the wrought arch was still and silent, dust motes floating gently around and through it to catch the candlelight, and then there was the impression of fiery wings, a scatter of incandescent feathers that made me shrink back in fear and a clatter of armor, smoke in my nostrils and the taste of magic choking in my throat. But then the moment passed, and in the wake of the flames came a roiling orange mist that sought to spill across the floor in thick, cloudlike torrents - but where it met the barrier of the chalk, it was turned back in upon itself, a seething mass of energy that from the brow-wrinkling frown upon the sorcerer's face, took every ounce of his will and discipline to control. Merely standing _near_ the construct was to be lingering in the wings of a storm, aether battering my mind in a hundred different directions and forcing several of us present to take a step back, needful of room to breathe in the face of it; I was among them, as were Nico and Kiert, but where our fortitude failed, Oros and Trist and Taion all stood strong, the black blade at the gyre's hip flaring to malicious life.

"Wait for the signal," Oros intoned, a sober growl so deep in his chest that it could have passed for the groaning of trees, and then he threw himself at the mist as if it were a rival to be defeated.

It swallowed him whole, and against my better judgment, my heart nearly stopped within my chest.

But where the others were lost in focus or staring at the portal in awe, Taion was worrying his lower lip with his teeth, an unbecoming habit for a prince; I flicked my eyes to his, diving from the expression upon his face that he knew more than he would have liked about what Oros had meant. "What signal?" I asked, as much to have the knowledge as to briefly distract Taion in lecture. The Helios ducked his sandy head in gratitude, his scholar's hands descending to scratch circles in Solana's great skull when the elemental leaned her weight upon his legs and whined softly, needing the reassurance of her master's touch.

"That he is safely through. The portal is only anchored on _this_ side," he noted, not looking at me and _decidedly_ not peering at the object of his observations. It seemed, for several moments, almost as if he feared that by acknowledging it, that he would somehow ruin Oros's chances of surviving the journey to the other side. "Part of the reason that it is so difficult to work portal-magic, and so rarely is there a sorcerer able to complete it, is because the terminus of the gate must be _created_ on the other side, by aether and the delicate control thereof." He lifted his head at last, only enough that he could track the progress of the pooling cloud of mist along the chalk-lines in the floor, his fingers sinking deeply into Solana's white mane. "The sorcerer must find a natural node of aether in the area of the destination, latch upon it, and then construct a gate with what is available, roughly the size and shape of the gate he works through. All the while maintaining control over what is, in essence, a torn and ravaged hole in the fabric of Atreia's own reality."

"And what happens if that control is lost?" I could not help the question; it spilled from my lips like water cascading through rocks, heedless of the horrors it hurtles towards. Taion's head dropped again at the question, however, hunching very slightly in upon himself, and I did not need to hear his answer to know of it.

"Then may Aion guard him, because he will be crossing all Atreia in somewhat of a differing manner than we may have planned." _If he survives at all,_ was the unspoken addendum, and my silver gaze returned to the portal and its flow of mist, steadfastly determined _not_ to imagine what might become of the graceful gyre should Terekai lose his concentration, even for a moment.

It could not have been more than the span of a handful of minutes - if my mother had been one of the greatest Sorceresses ever to live, then I could grudgingly admit that Terekai was certainly her match for skill and power - but it seemed to me an eternity, standing there and staring at the mist as it coiled and eddied along the chalk, never straying from within its confines, never touching anything other than the portal from which it originated, whilst in my mind I was pacing back and forth, impatient and concerned and my jaw aching with tension once I became aware that I had grit my teeth from tension. The aether of the reckless portal was a constant jagged bludgeoning of my senses, and I did my best to ignore it, though from the looks upon the faces of those about me I was hardly the only one having a difficult time of it; then, at last, when I thought all was lost and that the gyre had surely failed in his sojourn through the gate, the mist began to actively recede, fleeing from our presence and flowing backwards, through the portal, and wherever it touched the chalk the white markings dissolved and vanished, erased - or perhaps eaten away by the aether. In the end, we were left with only the graceful arc of the portal, the mist contained within it to a whorling vortex of orange mist and light, beads of sweat standing out upon Terekai's forehead, and a thunderous silence where before there had been only the chaos of the working.

I contemplated it for several long moments, watchful and waiting, and was rewarded for my sudden burst of patience when what appeared to be a rock emerged from the mist to skip gamely across the flagstones, tumbling end over end to stop only when it met the obstacle of Nico's feet. The shrike, fascinated, stooped to pluck it up from the floor, and my heart both surged and dropped when I saw in detail in her tiny hand - dark steel-grey stone flecked heavily with true black, stone I knew well, for Carcarron Keep was wrought of such granite, as was Rivenstone and very many buildings scattered all across the Twinned Duchy. The tors and the steppes were rife with it, the obsidian-coloured mica within the stone reflective and almost metallic, incredibly striking when the sun lit it at just the correct angle. It was a memento of home as much as the green jade coraline warm on my collarbone, but the coraline did not gleam wetly where snow and ice yet clung upon it, where the squarish chunk in the shrike's hand bore the obvious signs of an Asmodae winter, even now melting in the candle-lit chamber.

Nico, with a sudden bark of inspired laughter, flung the rock back through the portal with the attitude of a child skipping stones across a lake. "I daresay that's our signal," she grinned, impish and full of mirth, before she flared her bright wings and flitted through the portal, fearless, quick and assured. Trist followed her, then Kiert; only I of those assembled for this mission turned upon the balls of my feet and looked back, to see Terekai yet frowning in concentration, Taion forcing an encouraging smile for my benefit and Solana thumping her tail unhappily.

For a moment, I nearly balked, all at once confronted with the reality that I would be returning momentarily to _Carcarron_ - where Jareth and I had been born, where I had been betrayed, where my mother and Raum had both perished in flames and agony. Visions of the method through which I had entered Elysea also forebore to haunt me at the crucial moment, reminding me of the excruciating agony I had felt, the injury to my leg and the discipline it had taken to overcome it even in the slightest. Some part of me shrank from the stone edifice, my body more than my mind remembering the harsh toll that I had paid in order to arrive in Sanctum whole, if not unharmed. But then I thought of Kit; gentle, kind Kit, who had gone out of her way to make a stranger in a strange land feel more at home than she had in the years of service in her home-duchy, and I banished all the tremblingly incoherent fears from the edges of my consciousness.

It was an act of will to unglue my feet from the flagstones, to move towards and then dive through the glistening portal, but it was one I performed gladly, refusing to fail this mission before I had even truly begun. Into the mist - my stomach briefly attempted to revolt at the sensation of being flung through time and space - and then through it and out the other side, miraculously in one piece, though I needs must endure the indignity of falling to hands and knees among a wreckage of grey stone, my balance upset, my heart racing and my leg throbbing even under the pressure-bandage of the boot-lacings.

The cold was like a slap in the face. After the months of a temperate Elysean autumn and winter, I had almost forgotten how gnawingly, maliciously chill it could be in the death of the world, for even the late afternoon sun could not impart the slightest warmth upon the land; but where I had fallen among the debris was removed from the wind, at least, and when Kiert padded to my side to offer his arm, between the pair of us I struggled to my feet and began to scan the immediate area, my hair rasping across the collar of Kit's borrowed armor as my head swiveled this way and that. The node that Terekai had latched upon in his search crost Carcarron was underneath an aging stone guard-keep, three walls heavily overgrown with blackthorn, a patchy roof and an entryway decayed enough that three Daevas could, and did, stand abreast in it with more than enough room for their half-folded wings. Past them, I could see dimly sketched the landscape of my homeland, the trees bare, the tors covered in a blanket of white. Oros stood at the center of the opening, flanked by Nico and Trist - acclimatizing to the ley of the land, most likely - but I set my attention to the rear of me, to the portal in the back wall of the abandoned post. The terminus of the portal seemed to have erupted from the stone; the jagged pieces of granite around my feet had been expelled there when the gate had emerged from natural cracks in the rock, its edges asymmetrical, wandering this way and that. But the orange mist still swirled within its demarcations, and I turned away from it to pace to the ruined entryway and see Carcarron proper for the first time since Raum had died.

Nico shuffled her wings to make room for me, and I thanked her quietly as I leaned lightly upon the fallen stone where the structure had originally turned the corner; from such a vantage point, I had an uninterrupted panorama of much of the Twinned Duchy, and almost without thought began to orient myself based upon the landmark of the keep. The Duchy, as it was in my time, was a province in the steppes, at the feet of the mountains far to the east of Beluslan; while that region is far colder and more hostile than my home of Carcarron, in the depths of winter they are practically one and the same. Frost rimed the land as far as my eyes could see, and puffs of steam like dragons' breath rose into the air whenever we breathed the air, the chill like needles of ice in our lungs. Trees groaned under the weight of the snow, their branches dappled with icicles that caught the bluish light and refracted it, a striking beauty that I was well used to, yet seemed to catch the Elyos in my company, particularly Nico and Kiert, by surprise. The sky was heavy with thunder-grey clouds, the promise of further snow and sleet as yet unfulfilled, but lurking on the horizon and huddled around the mountains like a shawl. They would arrive within the hour, if a lifetime in these lands had made me any sort of judge, and the sky was already dimming - I adjusted to the lack of light with scarcely a pause, slipping into the habits of an Asmodian life as if I had never left it, but pupils of the Elyos were enormously wide, till their irises were a pale ring of colour around pools of black. Only Oros seemed unaffected by the fall of an Asmodae night, but then, I could see the snow reflected in them as he stood in hawkish profile on the precipice of Carcarron proper, his shoulders tight as bowstrings and his expression unreadable as the stone around us.

We were not far from the keep. It was a mighty stone edifice carved from the tors, already old when the line of Carcarron had been founded, and now in winter it was draped in gleaming strands and chains of ice, its ramparts piled with snow that would be left to block the upper entrances until the spring thaw; much of the river that cradled the province, forming the border between it and Beluslan, was far to the west of us, a glitter of light on ice that was barely visible through the darkening gloom. It would already be frozen hard enough that both creatures and conveyances could cross it as easy as walking across the road, and I felt a momentary pang as I remembered myself, Jareth and Raum as children, daring each other to test the ice, making games of it when there was little else for three adventurous youths to do in a snowbound province. I had to bow my head and forcibly shake the images away, the memory of Raum in particular too painful to be dealt with, now that I had returned to the Duchy where he had died in ignominy.

Instead, I focused upon the present, and our very real and very important business. "The keep is just there," I said, nodding to the black structure that sat upon the tors, like a disgruntled crow brooding on its nest. "The eastern dungeons are where they will have Kit, and night will fall soon. If I might make a suggestion," and when I turned it was to see the gyre's black eyes upon my face, his expression so piercing that I felt as if he stared right through me and out the other side, "it would be to strike soon. Before the change of guard, and fresh eyes and arms at the posts." I lifted my chin a fraction, defiant and proud that I had not faltered nor hesitated in the face of Oros's distinctly predatory gaze; but before he could either accept or decry my proposal, Nico was nodding to the horizon to our east, to a smaller, darker cousin of Carcarron Keep, nestled in the foothills where the mountains met the steppes, where the tors were sharpest and rockiest. Oh yes, I knew that landscape in particular _very_ well. No child of Carcarron could claim otherwise, and I had had more reason than most.

"What's that over there?" Her tone was curious and impertinent, as usual, but I could not find it in me to be annoyed; instead, I nodded my head to the structure, still feeling the gyre's dark gaze upon my face but unable to do anything to ward it off.

"Rivenstone. You can just see the Crown of Nails from here," and indeed I could, though the lesser keep was shrouded in snow and growing shadow; the spikes of rock on the Crown were unmistakable, silhouetted against the mountain as they were, thought Kiert and Trist both squinted in the direction that Nico and I had indicated. The little shrike's smile seemed to light up the twilight, however, and she pressed her palms together in delight.

"Like in the Lay? Where the battle took place, that whole thing with Mishuvel and Arkain and Osric?"

Ah, she sounded so _enthused_ that I did not have the heart to tell her that more than one person I had held dear to me had died there among those parapets, and though it felt as if my heart were breaking, I made a noise to the affirmative, pushing past it towards the more pressing matters at hand. "It should be abandoned now."

"'Should be'?" cut in the assassin, precisely on cue, and I matched my mercurial gaze to his soot-stained one without hesitance, divining strength from the conflicts of our pride. "You want us to stake our fates, and Kit's, on 'should be'?"

"The lord of Rivenstone is _dead_, gyre!" I threw back in his face, more forceful than I had meant or had ever been with him as grief lent weight to my words, enough to startle and back even Oros himself. It hurt, desperately it hurt to say the truth aloud, as if doing so made it more real - but in the heat of the moment I did not care how the words scored painfully across my heart, nails raked down the chalkboard of my soul. "Dead nigh on half a year past, much of his retinue with him, and in any wise the keep is considered unlucky by most. Haunted, by the superstitious." Cursed, by those who had the reason to believe such stories. But I had been swept away by my temper, and if I was not careful my voice would echo across the vast icy emptiness and bring down all of Carcarron upon us before we were ready for them. I shut my eyes, inhaled a slow breath, sternly chided my racing heart and my scattered self-control. I would not be responsible for Kit's loss before the rescue was even properly begun. When I spoke again, my eyes flashing open once more, it was to find the gyre with a wary expression, and my voice much more calm. "Even _if_ I am wrong, it will not matter. Rivenstone is further from us than the keep - far enough from Carcarron that even were there forces stationed there, when Carcarron raises the alarm, they will not reach us before we can reach the portal."

The expressions upon the others arrayed from impressed to startled to confused; Oros, on the other hand, wore nothing but a contemplative frown, his white brows knit together over his eyes, pools of ink in the paleness of his sharp face. One brow quirked upward very slightly at my phrasing, in specific the word 'we' - but then his gaze turned to Carcarron and the skies over it, pensive and arranging his thoughs as his frown slowly faded away. Then, after the rest of us had exchanged speculative looks and the consensus seemed to be that Oros would not speak at all, the gyre said briskly, "Fine, then. We'll do this _your_ way," and whilst I was staring in utter astonishment at him, he turned to the other Daevas present, their heads bowed together as they sketched a plan of attack. To be fair, the others seemed nearly as startled as I - Nico, in particular, struggled to keep the shock off of her heart-shaped face - but they were game enough for the battle-plan, and I found myself playing catch-up from context as Oros outlaid the plot.

"Trist and I will approach from the east with use of the clouds, to come in under cover. With any luck, we'll reach the eastern walls of the keep just as the snow starts to fall," said Oros, his face once more full of the intense focus that seemed to herald his wartime persona; gone were both the smug trickster and the haughty guardian from our days in Sanctum, and in their place instead was a lean and slender switchblade of a man, honed fine about the edges, dedicated to deadly efficiency and the sort of impersonal professionalism that one both expected and dreaded upon a battlefield. I was at once both fascinated and reserved to see it; I could not help but wonder precisely how many faces the gyre was hiding, for the longer I spent as part of the Furiae, the more complicated he seemed to be. "Once we're in position, Nico and Kiert will circle around to approach from the west and serve as a distraction. This is an in-and-out, _not_ a protracted battle," he sternly reminded Nico, when the little shrike began to smile just a touch too eagerly for her assigned role in the operation. "If you can't avoid conflict, so be it, but the last thing we need is for another of us to fall to capture."

"Are you certain that you want _me_ playing distraction?" said Kiert, one eyebrow up. "Yes, the swan wings are quite attention-getting, especially against these dark Asmodian skies - but I'm hardly as agile as Nico, nor as battle-capable."

"C'mon, think about it for a sec, Kiert," grinned Nico, so fierce in the moment that I could clearly see the points on her eyeteeth even in the rapidly dying light, and I remembered once more that her deed-name was the Butcher, with good reason. "One little Elyos out for an evening stroll in remote Carcarron, spoiling for a fight all by her lonesome, middle of winter and everything? They'll smell the lure before we even have a chance to spring Kit."

"Nico is correct," noted the gyre, black eyes searching the swan's face as if he were a craftsman studying his tools for flaws or weakness. Kiert's expression was mildly mutinous, the Cleric clearly unimpressed and somewhat unwilling to perform; that the gyre did not take him to task for it spoke volumes for the seriousness with which he viewed our mission, for where he might have dismissed Kiert and his concerns entirely, instead he addressed them directly, unflinchingly and without compromise. "The Asmodians know that we have been reconnoitering the area, and they may well expect us to attempt to free Kit. What we have to _hope_ is that they expect us to do so with the full weight of an Elyos army, and not a small strike team." Oros gripped Kiert's upper arm with one hand, forcing the swan to stare him full in the face, to feel the weight of his earnesty and the import of every second that passed idle, whilst Kit languished in glacial Carcarron. "Our lives may depend upon convincing the Carcarrese forces that you are a vanguard for a much larger force, including the White Dragon, if needs must be. Nico can't do that alone."

The swan was blushing cherry-blossom pink, presented with this calmly passionate argument; standing off to one side, breathing in the hungry cold of the air without a cloak of aether for aegis, even _I_ was impressed, understanding at last why Taion Helios, a charismatic and intelligent leader all his own, placed so much of his trust in the gyre and his unexpected grace. Oros's manners were like the rest of him, quick and to the point and sharp enough to steal breath from your lungs - but they were a sight to see, when he chose to exercise them. Kiert Fireheart nodded fractionally, and Oros briefly clapped his palm to the swan's shoulder. "There's a brave man. Once Trist and I have Kit, make all haste for the Gate, and as long as there are no unpleasant surprises, we ought to have plenty of time to get through and have Terekai close it behind us. Jaya will stay here to cover the portal until we're ready to go."

"A simple enough plan," I said under my breath, my eyes not for the gyre or the others, but for the slowly blurring shadow of distant Carcarron; there was a moment of pause in the chilly air before Oros said, "Sometimes, simple is all it takes," and then he flared the grey mass of his pointed wings, gunmetal-dark in the neophyte night, and I tasted autumn and desert winds. I turned just in time to see his face as he bunched the muscles of his legs and launched himself from earth, his jaw set hard as flint, his black eyes seeming enormous in his pale face, large and dark enough that it seemed they would swallow all light that dared to gleam upon him.

Trist soon followed him into the air, Oros in his black leathers already a fading smudge of darkness against the trembling skies, the wide span of the albatross's feathers only marginally less difficult to track with their grey barring and blue tips; the Daevas vanished up into cloud-cover swifter than I had expected, and soon there was no trace at that thorn-ringed post that they had ever been, save for a mingled gasp of desert air and mint. Nico watched them go, then, with her battle axe slung casually over her shoulder, snapped a playful salute in my direction before she spread her wings and rose lightly into the falling dark, what remaining light there was gleaming faintly along her dark skin with every stroke of her feathers. Kiert was the last, his lips pressed together into a severe white line as his face, and after several moments of contemplation the lanky Cleric turned and took my wrist in his hand, placing the heavy haft of his mace in my empty palm. At my startled, inquiring glance, he merely said with his eyebrows halfway to the heavens, "You'll as lief make better use of this than I will, Jaya. If they come close enough for me to find the need to use it, all has already been lost."

I nodded soberly, placing the free fist of my right hand to my heart, a soldier's gesture and, with all luck, one that I will never grow out of. "Aion go with you, Kiert. We are all counting on you."

He flashed a sardonic smile, his cerulean eyes tight at the corners - "Don't remind me" - and then the sweep of his wide, powerful wings appeared, pale and pure as fresh-fallen snow, and with them a hint of green herbs and fresh-ground cinnamon. In a matter of moments he was winging after Nico, every alabaster feather glittering in the twilit glow, a beacon for miles in all directions now that he was severed of his bonds to the earth. Where Oros and Trist were well-versed in the arts of stealth and care, Kiert was entirely untutored, and Nico too brash and full of reckless courage to put such lessoning to use, even if she cared to learn in the first place. Once they drew near enough, Carcarron could not fail to notice them, nor to rise to the challenge.

Precisely as the clever gyre had planned, of course, but that made the thought no easier to bear, for a mortal standing alone amongst stone ruins, the wind keening a lonely howl across the tors. Without the buffer of four Daevas to shield me, the gale seemed to tear straight through my borrowed armor to clutch its bony claws around my heart.

Kiert's mace yet in hand, I searched for a place among the rubble where I could watch the happenings at distant Carcarron, yet need not suffer in the cold. Eventually I wedged myself into a half-ruined corner, leaning my back to the stone and my legs locked at the knees, the gently swirling portal off to my left and Carcarron squatting on the horizon, the wind-stained silence across the Duchy so painfully empty that I found myself aware of every small shadow that stretched out before my roving gaze. The mace I set in the crook of my elbow, rubbing my fingers and the backs of my hands through the leather gauntlets, absently wary of the cold as only one who has lived a lifetime in the north can be; the dark fell all around me as if Aion Himself had dropped a black cloak across the world, blotting out the light, and I felt the familiar, peculiar sensation of my eyes adjusting to that abrupt night. I had watched Jareth's face during such processes, when we were younger and prone to the childish awe of the simple things in the world; I knew my eyes would seem impossibly enormous, silver irises gone to moonlight-grey in a sliver-slender ring around the void of my pupils, at their centers an iridescence that flared bloody scarlet if the light struck it just so. For an Elyos, the sleeping sun meant darkness, and darkness in their culture too often meant death - but for me, the further the light decayed, the more sharply were the features of the tors defined.

I knew that bare, stark landscape as if it had been etched upon my soul, and looking out upon it, all unexpected and perhaps for the final time, I felt a pang of homesickness like a blade in my gut.

But there are some old sayings that yet hold merit, and one of them is this: You can never go home again.

There was something else to this line of thought that nagged at the back of my mind, and with some experimental prodding I realized what it was - while I was Asmodian, and therefore entirely at home in the night, the Daevas I had embarked upon this mission alongside would hardly be so comfortable. Nico and Kiert would have the dim hearth-lights of Carcarron to arrow themselves by, should they lose their way in a blackened alien landscape; Oros, in particular, had no such guides, yet he had winged fearlessly off into cover of clouds, where surely he and Trist needs must battle the floating ice that had yet to fall to earth as well. There were stories, of Daevas who had flown too high and too swiftly in the cold, that their feathers had become so rimed with ice that they fell from the skies, helpless to arrest their fall -

But Oros had not seemed concerned in the least, nor had Trist, at least not for the specific dangers that the dark and snow threatened. Why might that be?

It was meditating upon this thought that I saw the first sparks of snow, drifting down like feather-fluff shed from the wings of Aion Himself; the flecks of white were a vanguard for a sheet of the stuff that spread out across Carcarron, the frontmost line of the storm seeming almost a curtain that the deity Himself had drawn across the Twinned Duchy. The sky was a roiling mixture of black and deep grey now, blotting out whatever stars might have shone, and lights were being lit in the keep, hearth-lights and signal fires both, and I was surprised to see the latter blazing in the towers of the castle, perhaps more surprised than I should have been - after all, if this mysterious White Dragon were truly gathering an army, then Carcarron Keep would needs must be made an _icon_ as much as a fortress, a rallying point for the disparate tribes of a people that held strength in conflict to the highest honor. From where I stood at the portal, I was much too distant to see evidence of what Beltaine's spies had ascertained, but some sense I did not know I had nor fully understood told me that the Fidelis were not wrong in their estimations, and that whatever sleeping dragons lay dormant in that keep, woe betide he that dared to rouse them from their slumber.

All the tiny hairs along my arms and the back of my neck standing on end, I had just realized the full import of the dangers of the mission when I saw the first flashes of silver and white against the distant skies.

Nico was a blur of silver on grey, flitting back and forth like an excited bee near the keep's western walls, doing entirely too well a job of convincing even me that she meant both to observe and to make sally at the keep's defenses; Kiert was easier to track, the swan some distance back from the shrike, his white wings scattering light all around him that he practically glowed with it. The response within the keep was near-immediate, and I could not suppress the surge of Carcarrese pride that accompanied the rise of a warcry that echoed out across the tors, a thousand throats screaming as one so loudly that I heard them even from where I stood. I came off of the wall for a better look, a fruitless gesture but one that my very blood demanded, just as the first set of Daevas rose from within Carcarron's inner courtyard, an arrow of five Asmodian Daevas shining with a black brilliance so radiant that it near-hurt to look upon them, the snow falling in earnest now to contrast with their darkness.

At the head of their formation, his silhouette unlike anything else I had ever before seen, was the White Dragon.

I was not close enough then to pick out features that I might spin into recognition, or even to clearly see anything other than his wings - but oh, what _wings_ they were, for my dreams of Mishuvel's dragon and the majesty of her span had only done the barest ghost of justice to reality. For one, her wings had been dainty, even delicate, the bones that bore the sails elegantly wrought; upon viewing the White Dragon himself, on the other hand, there was no doubt to his masculinity - not when power and regality and a certain sense of dynamic _movement_ were etched into every powder-white line, a resplendent outline of black luminescence that rolled off of him in a palpable sense of dominance and aether-laced faculty that I felt like a fist to my chest, so strongly even at distance that I staggered on my feet, reached out a hand to the stone wall to steady myself. The scars on my leg and at my shoulder pulsed in time with my pounding heart, and I felt a terrific ache in every muscle, an impulsion to stride forth that I mustered all of my hard-won mental fortitude to resist, until my vision swam with it and sweat pickled on my forehead. The White Dragon _called_ those of Asmodae around him to arms, and my body and blood stirred to answer, even against my will.

Gasping and leaning heavily against the stone wall, tears of pain and sorrow pricking the corners of my eyes, I knew without a speck of uncertainty then that Ariel's misgivings about him were entirely on the mark. If one man could summon to him Asmodian blades as easily as beckoning a finger, an aetheric summoning they felt so _deeply_ that it called upon the very fabric of their essence, then not only could that man raise an army the likes of which Atreia had never seen - that man could conquer all the world.

That man could crown himself a king. That man could make himself a _god_.

The Dragon was far, far more dangerous than I had ever dared to believe.

I blinked my dizziness away, holding my breath as I searched the skies; Nico, blessed, brave Nico, was luring the Dragon and his allies away, she and Kiert playing out what seemed from my vantage point an elaborate aerial dance with the dark-winged protectors who attempted to close with them. Aether bloomed in the skies, its backwash causing the snow to skirl and eddy as weapons erupted with fire or ice or streaks of jagged lightning - I felt it like the plucking of a string when a caster with a stubby sweep of charcoal mallard wings, secondary feathers an iridescent hunter-green in the half-dark, rose from their midst and began to rain destruction at the Elyos. Kiert's aether flared in response to form pale pinkish barriers around the pair of them, whilst Nico adroitly avoided every bolt of green fire sent in her direction and making it seem the height of ease. The Dragon remained somewhat back, however, hovering in place over the western ramparts with great strokes of those enormous white wings, dwarfing Asmodians and Elyos both, and yet not leaping into the melee; he seemed to be searching for something, waiting, likely for signs of attack from the flank, and only by the grace of where I stood outside the conflict did I see what the Dragon blessedly missed in his observations.

The gyre dropped like a stone from the clouds over the eastern walls, a magnificent, incredible stoop that stopped my heart in my chest, his grey pinions tucked so tightly around him that he seemed a falling star cast down by the hand of Aion himself. Down, down, down he fell, until with heart in throat I feared that he would strike the stone ramparts or the courtyard just beyond, and that would be the end of him and of our mission - but at the last second, the knife-blade wings unfurled and flared and brought him to a shuddering halt, one of his booted feet touching down briefly atop a crenelation before he dove into the courtyard and beyond my sight. Trist followed him, his descent just as swift but not nearly so graceful at the end, the albatross having rather more mass and momentum to slow - and then they were both behind the walls, with only my imagination and the knowledge of a lifetime spent in the keep to keep track of where they had gone. I chewed my lower lip ragged in worry and frustration, my gaze returning to Nico and Kiert and the play they enacted for the Dragon on the other side of the castle, praying without words and with all my might that they would escape the Dragon's teeth.

Nico and Kiert drew the Dragon and his forces back from Carcarron proper, further and further still, luring them away from the keep the way a killdeer will draw predators from its nest, with the feigning of weakness - though Nico was a ferocious little thing, and the Asmodians were wise enough to stay well back from the reach of the careworn battle axe in her hands, Kiert was clearly less of an immediate threat, and therefore the more tempting target. If there is a weakness in Asmodian souls, and in the Carcarrese in particular, it is that we can become caught up in our passions to the exclusion of all else - and as any Elyos will well know, the passions of the Asmodians are particularly powerful where concerns battle and conflict. But I, secluded as I was, was aware that the clock was ticking with every staccato heartbeat. Even the best and bravest Daeva could only stay aloft for so long; eventually they would be forced to ground, and if Nico and Kiert touched earth that would be the end of the matter -

Though of the ground drew my eyes to it, and I frowned in consternation as I surveyed the purity of the landscape surrounding Carcarron Keep; the Fidelis reports, and indeed, Ariel herself had said that the White Dragon was amassing an army, and yet there were no fields of tents, no sign that the castle of my youth harbored more than its usual share of militia or mercenary souls. The Dragon had a handful of lieutenants - I saw flickers of scarlet coverts among those dueling midair, and knew that Sryddan Redfeather was counted among them, heavy spear in hand and fearlessly pitting his arms against the shrike's - but five Daevas was hardly a legion, not without substantial mortal soldiers to back them, and in any case it had seemed most certain that the Dragon's banner garnered more support with every passing day.

Where, then, was the army?

Too often did the Furiae dare to tempt Fate that day, for no sooner than I had grasped this oddity did a cry arise from Carcarron, and as my eyes snapped back to the keep, pushing myself off of the ruined stone wall to gain something better of a vantage. Trist rose first from behind the dark stone, the albatross winging madly for the decaying outpost and the safety of the Gate, while clutched to his chest like his most precious treasure was what seemed at a glance a bundle of rags- but then I saw the crown of Kit's silver hair peeking out from the tatters of her scout's leathers, and my heart rejoiced, seized by the sudden fierce hope that we might yet succeed. But when Oros reached the skies, hard on Trist's coattails and both swords clutched in hand, he did not do so unpursued. The rallying cry from Carcarron rose and built in strength, and gradually I came to realize that it did not echo out across the tors, but instead seemed to be answered by them; and then, to the utter horror of my roving eyes, I saw dozens upon dozens of encampments seem to open like magma-melted pits in the snow. It was a simple, yet effective tactic - the snow was deep enough to dig trenches, and then a cover of canvas would camouflage their positions with only the lightest flurry of precipitation - but so cleverly deployed that I had no choice but to understand that the White Dragon had planned for this outcome.

He had baited his trap with the life of Kit Brightwing, and we had all walked blithely into it, blinded by both grief and the arrogance that we would not be expected.

But soon a more pressing matter came to the fore - though the ruined guard-post was raised up upon a little hillock on the tors, hidden in the shadow of it off some few hundred feet to my right was one of these ice-walled foxholes, and I found myself gaze-locked with a dozen mortal soldiers and their commanding officer, who seemed nearly as surprised to see me standing there as I was to see them.

Forward they surged with a hue and cry, breaking footpaths in the snow to circle the tor, and I lifted Kiert's mace and answered, baring my teeth to the frozen air, moving to the center of the fallen wall to await their arrival. I was briefly aware that Trist was fleeing for the portal at my back with every ounce of speed and will he possessed, his wings eating great swathes of distance as the screeches and howls of the Dragon's forces nipped at his heels; Nico and Kiert broke away from the Dragon and his lieutenants, making all haste for the portal, while Oros lagged somewhat behind, tacking back and forth across the skies, a living barrier of grey wings and blood-hungry blades. But the Dragon rose over Carcarron, the enormous span of his wings flared to their greatest, and I felt the pull of his summons so strongly that I staggered a single step forward while blood began to trickle from my nose, dragged near against my will to answer his call. In response, dozens of Daevas scattered across the tors erupted in showers of aether and wings - and Oros, the awkward motion of it drawing my eye despite the chaos roiling all around us, nearly fell from the sky, his wings limp and lanky frame paralyzed, like a gamebird that has discovered the hunter has hit the mark.

It was almost the end of him - Sryddan Redfeather, hard upon the heels of swan and shrike, saw the gyre fall and angled his blackbird's wings to intercept, in battle much the opportunist, like the corvid whose feathers he bore - but the knife-blade wings began to beat just before the point of no return, and Oros scudded hard across the landscape as he found himself suddenly on the run from the master of falcon, the tips of his wings throwing sparks of snow up and out where they brushed the tops of the drifts. I had no time to ponder it, had not the luxury of thought or, indeed, anything other than readiness of pure deed - for the commander of the footsoldiers, hidden so near to us that I felt a fool for not having known they were there, unwinched the wings of an osprey and arrowed directly for my heart, a sword in one hand, a shield hefted in the other.

Mortal I was, but Sara-shi had prepared me for this onslaught, the Mau bladesmistress often less a teacher and more a force of nature, a thing to be _reckoned_ with and not merely cast aside; and that is how I fought that day, mace to blade with a Daeva I did not know, my back to the Gate and a thousand Asmodian soldiers bearing down upon my position. In my days as Raum's protector I had always approached conflict with measured calm, but now I fought ferociously, aggressively, for I had very little to lose but more than enough strength of will to make this stranger _pay_ to take it - and I found myself backing him, forcing the osprey into a startled retreat behind his shield and into the company of his approaching troops, a rain of mace-blows enough to discourage him from underestimating me again. My blood was singing with it, furor and joy and pure stubborn will, warm across my lips and chin where it spilled from my nose, hotter at my shoulder where the osprey had found the joint in my borrowed armor and I had not felt the blow. Pain or cold could not touch me through that haze, adrenaline burning through me with such fervor that I felt it could consume my soul if I allowed it - and I felt too the aether all around me and _within_ me, trembling in the air, coursing through the earth beneath my feet, invisible rivers of energy that flowed and flowered and pierced to the core of every thing I could lay my eyes on. I felt like I stood at the center of some vast and intricate network of energy, connected to every flake of snow that fell, every needle on the pines, every mote of air that galed across the landscape.

I felt _good._ More than that - I felt... _powerful._ I was drunk upon it, upon the lifeblood of Atreia and the mounting fear behind the osprey's eyes, and with a throat-torn cry I charged the stranger-Templar with a ferocious, fang-bared smile upon my twisted lips.

Nico would tell the story later, of how one mortal woman fought with such barbaric savagery that she held the osprey and his soldiers back from the portal, with ample space and time for Trist to wing over her head and gain the Gate, his lank frame folded round Kit to absorb the brunt of impact, for he did not slow one whit as he soared across the battlefield; she told of how Kiert followed him with terror-bright eyes, the swan never so alacritous in all his days before or since, and of how she turned and saw the footsoldier armies swarming like ants to converge upon us all, Daevas rising into the air like locusts, silhouetted against the blackening sky. I remember none of it, so deeply gone in an aetheric blood-haze that my world had narrowed to the osprey and the soldiers and the vague awareness of the portal at my back, and the shrike streaking down to ground no less than three of my assailants with one sweep of her axe. The Butcher and I stood together, facing them down, as the portal _burned_ behind us in response to the caster-mallard, who now focused all his considerable will upon it. I saw out of the corner of my eye as the gyre bodily _slammed_ into the mallard to break his concentration - he was swiftest of all of us, was brave Oros, and Sryddan could not long keep pace with him in the air, though it would have been a fair match who was the fiercer aground. But the portal eased, distant Terekai forcing it to restabilize itself within the parameters that he had set, and assured that the tangle of black and grey and green wings would soon sort themselves out or die trying, Nico and I again charged the osprey, secure in nothing but the thought that the Gate must be protected at all costs.

We fought, and I did not feel any of the blows that reached me, not the ones that rang hollow against my borrowed armor, nor the ones that drew blood, the ones that would have ordinarily sent a mortal creature reeling back among their traces - they were as nothing to me, I was a redheaded colossus, an unstoppable force, and I laughed with the pure sweet joy of it, of feeling _invincible_ and seeing the mortal enemy cower before me, of the unholy fear in the osprey's face as Nico's axe bit sideways into his ribcage, a Daeva that had lost the battle upon every front. As he fell there was an almost audible clatter of feathers and aether, as the gyre reached ground beside us in the space that the dying osprey had left vacant, and with dim awareness I heard him shout at her to _go_, that he would hold the line -

And Nico, seized by indecision, nearly balked even as Oros stood tall with wings spread, the Last Word in one hand and a shining sliver of a sword in the other, and faintly I remember that I smiled a rictus-grin at her with a blood-streaked face, my teeth stained scarlet and my pupils so dilated that they nearly swallowed my irises. "We will be right behind you."

She tells me that seeing my face that day gave her nightmares for a week.

But that came afterward, and that day the Butcher followed her orders, turned upon her heels and ran, her shrike's wings banished as she pounded for the Gate, and did not look back.

The osprey's last gasps were guttering out at our feet, as the gyre and I stared at one another, our faces streaked with scarlet and our respective raiments torn and tattered and marked with gaping holes where the enemy had won through our defenses; behind us, the Gate sat in expectant quietude, while ahead of us the armies of the White Dragon regrouped, the landlocked battalions meeting and organizing into ranks, the Daevas filling the snow-spitting skies with their dark wings, making the very air seem too thick to breathe for the weight of all the aether within it. But there was serenity upon Oros's hawkish face, a calm that heralded a deadly storm, and I knew that he realized we were outgunned, that likely he would die here on Asmodian soil and had made his peace with it.

What I had not realized before that moment, seized by it so powerfully that I felt almost as if I had been gutshot with it, was that I had no intentions of tamely allowing Oros to die.

_Hate me and live._ I could do no less to repay him.

"You should go. This battle is already lost, but if I run now, they gain the portal before Terekai can close it," he said quietly, shifting his wings that their shadow fell across me, that the forces arrayed in the skies overhead could not directly see the orange mist of the portal behind us. But I smiled - the expression caused a new flood of red to leak out across my lips, dripping down my chin to spatter across the breastplate of Kit's armor - and hefted Kiert's mace, my feet apart, my back straight and tall as I could make it, heedless when he insisted, "They'll be expecting you."

"If you think that I am going to retreat before you do," I returned, just as quietly as he, "then you have another think coming, gyre."

Against all expectation, it made him smile, heartrendingly so, a smile I had never before seen cross his oft-haughty face. It made my chest hurt merely to see it, how he tipped his head slightly to one side to make his white hair fall across his so-black eyes, and he quirked his mouth, brave and grateful and rueful and sad, all in the same breath. His words held a tracery of something that softened what would have normally been a barbed insult, something I took entirely too long to recognize - respect. "You never do know when you're outmatched."

"Neither do you," I grinned back at him, and when the Dragon's armies rushed the guard-post, we met them together.

I remember only snatches of the fighting, disparate fragments of a story that would have been a tale for the ages, like pearls upon a string, only tangentially connected even within my own mind. Snow falling in gentle drifts, stirred to violent action by the wings of swooping Daevas. Men and women charging us, only to fall or be pressed back by mace or blade, and once by the sweep of the gyre's silver wings, Oros leaking aether like a sieve and well past the stamina required to fly, but that did not make those broad, strong feathers any less of a weapon in his capable hands. Where I relied on raw vicious strength, he was grim, graceful efficiency; I was ragged steel where he was silk and smoke, but though we should not have held that post as long as we did, we worked very near in sync, for a mortal and Daeva. Where my lack of a shield failed me, Oros compensated with snap-quick reactions - and where his quickness saw him almost overtaken by the flood of bodies, I forced an opening in the lines, a one-woman wedge to give him room to breathe. He was glowing faintly in the darkness, a pale silver light as if he had swallowed the moon and it radiated from beneath his pale, pale skin, and though the Asmodian night was oppressive in its strength, whomsoever dared to cross the border from shadow into the light of his aether regretted it. My lungs were full of desert sand and autumn wind, and I thought that if we died here, in defiance of being captured alive, it would not be a bad death - and we would take many of the Dragon's followers with us.

We had the high ground; we had the steady stone shelter of the guard-post, protecting our backs and sides, and making assault from directly overhead unfeasible at worst and difficult at best. But in the space of breath we had, as one wave fell back and the next had yet to test their bravery against the circle of light surrounding us and throwing my shadow boldly against the snow, I had time to wonder: why were the Dragon's casters not assailing the walls, or attempting a collapse of the ceiling? Why were they not, in fact, assaulting myself and Oros at all? The mortal soldiers I expected - one Daeva could not hold out for an eternity, and we would eventually be overrun without risking the death of another unfortunate immortal, such as the unlucky osprey - and Oros held his eyes upon them, backing them on little but presence and a ferocious expression, but my eyes strayed upwards, for the Daevas. Though the more marital of the immortals were shouting commands to the troops aground, the Dragon had clustered every last one of his casters around him, for I saw the mallard tacking slowly back and forth through the skies. It was a frustrated gesture and one that put me immediately in mind of an anxious man pacing, itching to act but disallowed the freedom, and a brief wondering why the mallard might be shackled in such a regard led my thoughts down a path I feared they should have tread long before such had come to pass.

Portal magics were delicate, this I knew. Foreign castings performed too close to it could disrupt them entirely - and with that thought came the next revalation, that the trap that the White Dragon had set had not been merely to capture whatever forces came to retrieve Kit Brightwing. No, he wanted the _portal_ - a direct conduit into Elysea for a conquering warlord and all of his troops, one that his own enemy was providing him, _holding open_ for him with every ounce of will available -

Where Terekai sat unawares on the other side, in the belly of Sanctum itself, with a Helios prince attendant and as many hostages as an Asmodian lord could desire. The Dragon would not jeopardize that by sending Sorcerer or Summoner at myself and Oros, or even his healers to his troops; it was far more expedient to sacrifice the mortal soldiers and allow the immortal ones to conserve their strength, without putting the fragile Gate at unnecessary risk. Cutthroat, yes, but effective, for if he marshalled all of his forces through that Gate, catching an unprepared city from within, he could claim the city for Asmodae within _hours_.

And once taken, he could hold it _indefinitely_, with so many Daevas in place, and so many noble civilians caught in the crossfire. It would be worse than a bloodbath. Aion, how could I not have seen it before?

"Oros, the Gate -" I blurted, ice slushing the blood in my veins, my movements impossibly slow as I reeled with the implications of the Dragon's lure; but just as the gyre pivoted on the balls of his feet to glance at me, the assault renewed itself, brave Asmodians rallying to test the bounds of their courage and his skills one last time. Oros's attention shifted from me to the soldiers, his wings working behind him as he beat them back, the Last Word's black glow brighter now than the dimming light of the gyre's own aether, feeding on the fear of the wounded and dying, devouring every scrap of emotion or energy that dared to touch the runeblade.

I turned to cover his flank, to stand against the tide of warriors one last time - but I had forgotten about Sryddan Redfeather and his lance, the old blackbird's wings capped in scarlet at the upper coverts, and where the Dragon's magefolk had been forbidden to intercede, it seemed there was no such interdiction on those in other disciplines. There were no Rangers among the Daevas under the Dragon's command (for surely a bowman would have peppered us with arrows long before, had there been even one present) but Sryddan knew his lance could suffice in a pinch. I saw him lift it, then the mighty throw using his wings to propel him for extra momentum, a heartbeat of perfect clarity that felt an eternity to my mind, but in reality could only have been a split second; the lance was easily as long as I was tall, a carved and feather-decorated stave carved of blackthorn wood, the head tempered steel shot through with purple veining, from the unique impurities in the ore. I had seen the spear a thousand times growing up in Carcarron, strapped to Sryddan's back or wielded in the practice ring. I could not mistake it now, not when it was screaming down upon me like the wrath of kings. It seems so stupid with the benefit of hindsight, but in the moment I could not move; my mind screamed for action, but I was frozen to the spot, rooted like a tree in the snow-covered earth, my borrowed mace raised and staring my own end directly in the face.

Sryddan's spear hit me in the gut, with such magnitude that I found myself flat on my back in the ruined tower, the mace lost and forgotten, dropped from nerveless fingers to clatter somewhere off to the side among the shattered stones. My hands found the wound - through and through, I could just feel the tip of the lance scraping horrific runes against the inside of my backpiece with my every movement, could feel hot blood beginning to pool against my cold skin, pain an explosion of white on the inside of my eyelids, so terrible it took everything within me to rebel against the encroaching darkness. I pressed my palms and fingers around the head of the spear, a vain gesture, as if by simple pressure I could remove it like a splinter, could cease bleeding, could cease dying; but while there was a part of me that was screaming in panic, it was a distant piece, detached, as if it belonged to another person. A frightening numbness began to radiate outwards from that wound, and my mind was affected as much of my body, all fear, all will, all emotion draining away, a sluice for blood set at the foot of my own personal gallows.

It almost felt as if someone else were dying on that cracked stone floor, and not myself at all.

I had the strength to roll my head to one side, to move my eyes to the gyre where he yet stood; he had turned back over his shoulder, towards me, and his face was stricken, every feature outlined in the dual glow of his own aether and the brilliant darkness of the Last Word, a wickedly graceful creature once more caught between light and shadow, life and unlight and death and fear and sorrow. He turned away from me, spread his wings once more, and his bellowing cry rocked the tors as he fought, reckless precision and lethal efficiency. The gap at the entry of the guard-post was near twenty feet from end to end, and his wingspan not near enough to cover all of it; but that day, he held the line alone, and no Asmodian who dared the circle of his light would ever rise again. I watched the muscles in his back and shoulders work, saw the ferality etched in his every line as he threw himself unreservedly into the battle; he moved like a dancer, and whatsoever he touched fell from him almost disconsolate, curls of fallow wood carven away from the pure and slender artistry of the Assassin in his every motion. He was grace given form, savage perfection given rein to run free, a living tempest with the face of an angel, and none who dared approach in that sublime resplendence could so much as _touch_ him. He held the line, exactly as he had said he would.

Aion help me, he was beautiful then. There are far less worthy sights to see as one marches into the grave.

I moved my head again, rolled my eyes, glimpsed the edge of the portal, a tracery of orange mist, and knew then that there were far less worthy ways to die, as well. Certainty filled me as it had never done before, and every cell of me knew what it was that I had to do.

Every motion was agony; the rushing of my own blood filled my ears, till all that I could hear was my own stammering heartbeat, but I screwed shut my eyes, clamped my gloved hands on the haft of the spear, where the blackthorn staff was bound to the metal head. I felt the scream in my throat as I pulled the spear from my own flesh, but I did not hear it - did not hear it, and did not care to, tears in my eyes as I dragged the weapon from my body, every gasp and tremor an eternity of pain as the spear wiggled in response, a torture I had no choice but to inflict upon myself. When at last I had yanked it free, a fresh welling of liquid heat overflowed and spilled down my torso, soaking into the padding beneath the ruined armor, but I did not have time to question it, did not have the strength to contemplate it. I had the spear in my hands, and that was what was important - was all that really mattered.

I don't know how I found the ability to roll over onto my front, eyes flying open, staring at the portal as if my mere gaze were enough to quench the thaumaturgical forces that worked within. Even less can I fathom how I braced the spear upon the floor, and began to drag myself up it, inch by excruciating inch, till I was weeping and screaming and staggering with every breath I took - but I stood, and with the spear for aid and one hand pressed against my wound to keep my guts inside my frame, I staggered for the portal, every motion won at terrible price, paid for with blood I did not have and strength I could not borrow. I refused to look down at my wound, at my legs or my armor or even the floor beneath my unsteady feet; I knew that if I saw how much of my life lay spattered on the stone, or felt the wounds I had suffered, both old and new, I would be lost and there would be no recovery, no chance of completion of the task that almost seemed to me handed down by Aion himself. My sight was edged in scarlet and black in any wise, and the world I knew had narrowed to myself and Oros and the portal, with the barest sense of the battle going on at my back, at the unexpected glorious sight of the gyre at battle, that I would never again be allowed to see.

The Dragon wanted the portal, and the city beyond; I could not allow that to come to pass. But I had the strength for only one chance.

I reached the ragged-edged portal at the back wall of the guard-post, and I balanced myself on unsteady feet, hefted the spear in both hands. My limbs felt heavy, every muscle in my body aching, my head pounding and full of the rush of blood and the shadows that threatened to overcome me; I tasted my own life on my lips, and found the coppery flavor of it bittersweet at best. My eyes fell shut of their own accord, and behind my eyes I saw my brother's smiling face, and smelled my mother's perfume.

Now. It would have to be now.

I opened my eyes, and my gaze fell upon a crack in the stone where the Gate demarcated its boundary, a crack just wide enough for the tip of the spear I now held.

Up I lifted the lance, and with a shout from deep within my soul, pouring every last ounce of strength I had into the motion, I drove the spear into the stone, throwing my weight behind it, my soul, my life, my love and my hatred and all the passion I had ever felt, committing with one movement to a death that would mean life for hundreds of thousands of others. If in my last act I could protect them all, protect all those I cared for and many more besides, then not one whit of me would hesitate. I would throw myself upon the pyre, and burn to ashes within, if it meant they would not suffer under the hand of the enemy.

The Dragon _would not have them_, so long as there was breath in my body.

_I am not afraid._

I felt the fire in my chest a split-second before the edge of the portal gave way; heat blossomed and flowed through me with such sudden intensity that I gasped to feel it, and where it burned it consumed _everything_, all the emotions I had pulled within myself to give me the strength to act, the pain of my injuries, the ache in my old wounds and the sorrow in my heart. I staggered backwards, clawed at my own chest, unable to free whatever flame had begun to burn within me - fell to my knees as the stones around the Gate pulled themselves free of its mortar, bricks flying in a dozen different directions as the magic of the portal exploded in a shower of sparks and embers, the wall sagging, then then ceiling, till it fell in upon me.

But the stone never touched me, doubled over as I was on the floor of the guard-post, bracing myself against the ground with my gauntleted hands; whatever rock dared come near enough to me to touch melted into slag, or turned to liquid magma and seeped into the cracks in the floor, the dark stone glowing white beneath my splayed hands as I struggled to breathe. I burned within, and there was a hard knot of tightness in my chest that would not abate, only squeezed and shoved and felt as if it were attempting to push my insides out through my fingers, until it seemed there would never be enough room within my body for the both of us. And then the pain migrated back inwards, felt something within me erupt, screaming hoarsely over and over again as every breath I dragged into my lungs was stolen immediately by the pain -

My back was searing hot, so painful that I could not straighten nor move, and my tears, when they flew from my eyes to hit the stone between my palms, immediately burst into puffs of steam. I pulled my hands from the molten stone, half-expecting leather and skin to peel away from beneath me as I did, but there were instead two blackened imprints of my palms along the granite, perfect as if Aion himself had put them there. Smoke surrounded me, the acrid taste of brimstone and burning earth, and I realized with a strangled sound within my own mind that the heat and smoke I tasted was a product of the aether, and it was pouring out of me, _through_ me in an uncontrollable torrent, a volcanic cannonade that could only have sourced itself from within.

I was choking on it - aether and heat and a white light so bright that it illuminated the cloud-driven sky. Red and white and orange fire had engulfed _everything_, was still devouring anything unfortunate enough to be in its path, snow, stone and soldiers all, so that I knelt at the center of an aether-driven inferno so massive that it turned the night to day. In terror and agony I drew myself up, searched around me for aid, saw the armies of the Dragon scattering and the Daevas abandoning the field; only Oros remained, on his knees in the melting snow with the Last Word held before him like a shield, one white-knuckled hand clinging to the hilt with his other arm protecting his face, cast across his light-blind eyes. But beyond him I thought I saw a strange figure, the shape of a man that wore a helm shaped like a dragon's head, his weapons and armor white but lit within by a pure darkness -

And then I saw the others that surrounded the guard-post, a dozen or more, men and women, some pale, some dark, all preternaturally still and with their faces hidden by heavy heaume. I became conscious of a terrible seething pain at my back, as though the flesh were bubbling from my inner heat, and I laced my arms over my belly and half-bent from the anguish of it, my eyes squeezed shut and pricking once more with tears, my frame bled dry of both hope and desperation. I could not endure the pain any longer. I could not -

_You can, and you will,_ said a voice, and my eyes flew open when for the first time in ten years I heard the voice of Ashura Aether-born, the woman who brought me into the world; then I looked up, and there she was, falcon-helmed and immaculate in black robes and armor, her visor tipped up that I might glimpse her face. I began to weep in earnest then, seeing this shadow-ghost with the face of the woman who had bore me, but she smiled and lifted her hands to press to my cheeks, bending down to touch her forehead to mine. _My precious daughter, you were born to be strong when all other strength fails._

A thousand questions crowded behind my lips, fluttering like insect wings, but I could not force any of them into the open air; the ghost of my mother only smiled, and smoothed away my tears with the pads of her thumbs, as she had so often done when I was young. The words she whispered seared themselves upon my soul, even as I shuttered my gaze against them. _But the heroes of Atreia are not born; it is by their own actions that they are **made**._

She pressed her cool lips to my burning forehead, calmness to slake my hungry fever, and I felt it when the wings erupted from my back with a wave of pressure that made the aether-flames gutter from its strength. When I opened my eyes once more, dizzied and bereft and so bone-achingly _tired_ that I could have lain down and slept for a dozen years, the figures were gone, my mother with them. In their place remained only the gyre, the flames reflected in his obsidian eyes, and there are no words for the expression he wore upon his haggard face.

"Oh, Aion help us," he said hoarsely across the roar of the flames, as I swayed helplessly upon my feet. "_What have you done?_"


	21. Chapter 21

Oh, dear, it seems I've done it again. 13k words and then some. :x My apologies once again for a MASSIVE chapter, and for the delay on it (my target release date was Valentine's Day). Hopefully this chapter will answer some of your questions... but if it doesn't raise some more for you to wonder over, then I haven't done my job properly. :3 Thank you in advance to my loyal readers and reviewers!

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What had I done, indeed.

The flames born from my Ascension began to fade as I examined myself in their flickering light; aether coursed through me so powerfully that it made the tattered edges of my vision throb, but in that new illumination every lean line of my hands and arms seemed perfectly sculpted, the play of tendons under my death-pale skin full of an endless fascination, such that it took me several long moments of contemplation to realize that the gauntlets I had worn had charred themselves into nothing more than ashen smears. I felt intrinsically connected to all things under Aion's grace in a way that my mortal mind had never imagined possible - I sucked in a winter-cold breath, suddenly desperate for air, and the world breathed with me. I could sense the hot, thrumming pulse of the earth beneath my feet, felt like pinpricks against my skin the steam that rose from the melting snow, curling and coiling upwards into the air and taking tiny pieces of my soul with it.

I had been cold, before - even warmed from the exertions of battle with the osprey and with the forces united under Carcarron's banner, I had been aware on some level of the chill that emanated from the landscape, of my breath dragoning out from my nostrils with every motion, of the minuscule crystals of ice that threatened to form in my hair and on my borrowed armor. The winter could not touch me now, except as a gentle caress at my cheek, a thing so ephemeral that it was more known of than felt.

But I had delayed it long enough; I turned my head to glance over my own shoulder, muscles tensing and flexing in my back that I had until that moment not been aware that I possessed, and my breath caught in my throat as I examined the wings that immortality had bestowed upon me, rather than allow me to chase Terekai's portal into the dark. Where the gyre's were sleek and pointed like the blades of knives, mine were ragged, the wing-arms themselves powerfully built while the body of feathers was broad and fan-shaped, triangular coverts and flight feathers the deep iridescent blue-black of a raven's, fading into a rich cobalt at their arrow-shaped tips. Enthralled, I spread my new-fledged wings wider to examine them in all their wonder, I saw that my secondaries were bright cerulean, bluer than a newborn sky, interspersed with long-vaned feathers that trailed luxuriant azure eyes fringed in black, as if a handful of feathers from the tail of a peacock had been dark-dyed and then placed there in my wings by the hands of Aion himself. I was startled to discover that their span rivaled that of Oros's own wings, and that when I flexed them experimentally, allowing myself to acclimate to their heft and weight, the cobalt tips left phantom arcs of aether in the air behind them, ghostly traceries of themselves that drew the eye and left my jaw agape in wonder.

They were unmistakably the wings of a phoenix, extravagant and proud - but it came like being dropped in glacial waters the realization that they were just as unmistakably the wings of an _Asmodian_, and that though I still wore the coraline and bore Terekai's illusions wrapped lover-close about my frame, no Daeva with the eyes to see could mistake those wings for anything other than what they were.

"Oh," I heard myself say in a quiet, small voice, as distant and detached as if I were standing across the Abyss, "we're in a _lot_ of trouble, aren't we?"

"You have no _idea_ the kind of trouble we're in," growled the gyre, and I startled, remembering his presence, my wings hunching in upon me in an instinctively defensive pose as I sent my wide-eyed gaze in his direction. In a series of fluid movements that I saw as clearly as if in a series of paintings, each motion individual and perfect, he rose, banished his fog-grey wings, slammed home the Last Word and its pale mate in their scabbards at his hips, and stormed towards me with such thunderous intent of purpose that I expected him fully to deck me crost the jaw when he reached me. But though I could see the desire to do so etched in every graceful line of the Assassin's form, he refrained from doing so - in fact, he stopped just shy of easy reach and easier temptation, gesturing sharply with the flat of one hand while the other clamped about the crossguards of his swords, a gesture that seemed a physical manifestation of his need for self-control. His black eyes _burned_ in his snarling face, his gaze burrowing into mine, and I could not have looked away even had I the inkling to do so. "What in _blazes_ was that, you daft woman? You could have killed us both! Not to mention," and his free hand pointed back behind me, at the ruins of the portal, the stone bubbling and melting slowly into volcanic ooze, "that you've almost _certainly_ injured Terekai, if not outright killed him or anyone standing too close to the Gate - _or_ the fact that we are now stranded in bloody _Asmodae_, with the _entire army_ of the White Dragon half a blinking mile away and ready to murder us _both_ in cold blood!"

He threw up his hands with a wordless noise of aggravation, whirled on the balls of his feet, pressed hard the heels of his strong hands to his eyes as he attempted to regain some measure of discipline; I, who had seen Oros in worse temper before (and not terribly long ago, at that), was instead caught by imagining the fate of Terekai Nameless, who by all accounts had poured all of what he was into the creation and maintenance of the portal, that those who crossed into Carcarron might make it safely home again. What would the destruction of such a massive working _do_ to a Sorcerer caught unawares by it, his mind and soul wrapped intimately and inextricably around and through it? Terekai was old and powerful, but could even he survive the wanton destruction that the Gate's destruction - and my consequent Ascension - had wrought?

And moreover, why did I feel _fear_ for the safety of Terekai Nameless, when by all rights I should revel in his suffering?

I wanted to believe that it was only because I desired to know the secrets he held behind his quick, enigmatic smile, but I could not claim it honestly, not even within the sanctuary of my own mind.

"I am sorry," I blurted to the gyre's back, and though for what I was apologizing was eminently unclear to the both of us, he dropped his hands, rolled his shoulders once to force them to relax, and then let out a breath that was too even and too slow to be a sigh.

"Don't apologize. It isn't _your_ fault that you Ascended, nor the manner in which you did it, or how Aion chose to respond." He turned somewhat, so that he stood in profile to me, a lithe sliver of a man gilded in orange and gold by the dying fires all around us. His expression was inscrutable, but I saw my own face reflected in his black eyes, tasted desert wind and autumn air more crisply and sweetly than ever before, detected nuances in it - and him - that I had never thought to search for. "That was a brave thing you did." A pause, as the corner of his mouth quirked so subtly that it might have been a trick of the light. "Stupid. _Unbelievably_ so. But brave."

"_So_ glad that I have your vote of confidence, gyre," I shot back at him, a crooked smirk to gentle the blow summoning a matching expression on his hawkish face. Aching and unable to determine why, I pressed one of my palms to the place where Sryddan's spear had nearly ended me - but instead of a rush of scarlet and the drain of dying, as I expected, I felt only raw-seared flesh, where the fires of my rebirth had cauterized the wound. I had no doubt that it would scar, and nastily, but at least I was not in any imminent danger from a wound untended. I glanced downwards at it, turning my palm upwards to examine the soot smeared across my hand, and just like that the gyre's entire body language shifted, the bulk of his temper excised as he put his quick mind to better uses than chiding me for my idiocy.

I did not expect him to lay hands upon me, but he took the last step to cross the threshold into my personal space and put his hands to both my shoulders just below the pauldrons, forcing my gaze directly to his face, no longer full of anger but instead blazing with intellect and purpose; for a moment I was not even consternated by being touched without my permission, distracted by the determined frown that fret his white brows and frowned his mouth. Perhaps that had been his original goal, to deny me distance and the room to flee an important, but impertinent question. "Do you trust me, Jaya?"

Aion help me, I knew the answer to that inquiry, but I would not voice the truth of it, instead lifting my chin in defiance. His aether felt frigidly cold where it arced through and interacted with mine, and if I concentrated I could almost delineate where each of his fingers lay upon my borrowed armor. "That depends on what you ask me to trust in you."

A slight mistake on my part - I heard the faint creak of his leather gloves as his grip on my shoulders tightened fractionally, and my wingtips fluttered in response, but his face remained the same. "Let me amend that statement, then. Do you trust me to get the both of us out of this alive?" I hesitated a breath, then nodded slightly, the movement a fraction of an inch but enough, at that close range, that he could not mistake my agreement. His mouth pressed itself into a thin white line as the gears turned behind his black gaze, but though it felt an eternity before he spoke again, it could not have been more than a moment, a handful of heartbeats yanked free of tempo. "You said that Rivenstone is abandoned, that the keep will be empty. Are you still willing to stake our lives on that assessment?"

I frowned up at him, the difference in our heights small enough that I did not need to crane my head to do so. "What are you planning, gyre?"

"We need to regroup. I'm unfit to fly, as much energy as I spent in that skirmish, and you -" He finally released me, stepping with unconscious grace backwards out of my sphere of influence, and I felt the hole where the sense of his aether had been as keenly as if a draft had blown across me, "Well, _you_ are bleeding enough aether that if we don't find a place to hide, and swiftly, the Dragon's trackers will be able to find you like a beacon in the night." He sent his obsidian gaze in the direction of Carcarron, our eyes both adjusting to the fall of night now as the last of the fires guttered out and died, leaving us cloaked in complete shadow, no moon or stars to dilute the sudden beauty of the darkness; I acclimated to the dark as quickly as any Asmodian, but I was startled to see that not only did Oros compensate for the lack of light nearly as quickly as I did, if I focused upon his face as he looked out across the trampled snow, I could detect a faint iridescent shine in the backs of his eyes, his pupils become ovals of dark grey ringed by black irises. I counted it a minor blessing that he did not seem to notice my sharp intake of breath, his mind likely awhirl with the things that must come to pass in order than we escaped the predicament we found ourselves in. "We have twenty, perhaps thirty minutes before the Dragon's Daevas are able to fly again - they expended as much aether as I did, and the Dragon committed all of his forces to the taking of the portal. Cocky," he noted, one white brow arching.

I found my voice, eager to distract myself from the worrying sight of the gyre's eyes and their grey false-glow that reminded me uncomfortably of an Asmodian's scarlet eyeshine. "He will not make that kind of a mistake again, if he is even _half_ of the leader that Ariel and the Fidelis seem to think that he is."

"Unfortunately for us, but that can't be helped." He paced to one side so that his back faced me and sent his gaze the other direction, to the distant outline of Rivenstone, the structure cloaked in snow left undisturbed, no lanterns lit, no signal-fires burning, even in the aftermath of the battle for the Gate; it was as fortuitous a sign as I could have hoped for, for surely if there were residents in that accursed keep, they would have roused themselves to the call of the Dragon and his armies. "But the Daevas aren't my concern. We only have a short window before the Dragon rallies his soldiers and marches them back here. They routed once, yes, but they won't do so a second time." I could not see his face, but I could hear the grimness in his tone. An aether-tapped Daeva and a new-fledged immortal could not hold against those armies, not without surprise or the tactical advantage of the outpost, now fallen down all around us. The only option that was not plainly suicidal was a retreat, and I could read in the set of his shoulders that Oros did not enjoy the thought of fleeing like a coward. "We need to reach Rivenstone, and hide there until morning, at the least. Once we have the luxury of space to breathe, we can decide where to go from there."

The very thought of dwelling in that accursed place once again, where my mother and Raum both had died, but with the extended and raw senses of a newly-reborn Daeva, shook me to my core. Though Ashura Aether-Born's death was safely enough in the past that I could cope with it if need be, I knew in my heart that I was not ready to face the spectre of Raum, who he was and what he could have been, if not for my weakness, my failure. My wings shuddered with a noise like the leaves on a tree caught in a gale, and if my voice trembled, it was only because my frame was shaking beneath the borrowed armor of a Chantress, and not from fury, nor from the frisson of chill that accompanied the snow that had begun once again to fall. "You cannot be serious." _Don't ask me to do this, gyre. Please._

He flicked a glance my way, and I saw, just for a moment, naked curiosity on his stark-angled face, unable for a heartbeat to conceal the thoughts close-held behind his night-lit eyes, as he wondered why I might be so afraid of walking halls that I had already professed to knowing well - but then the mask returned, the faint shine of his eyes seeming to bore straight through me, and when he spoke, his voice was unwontedly kind, though the words could easily have been impelled into harshness. "If you have a better idea, phoenix, I'm listening."

_Phoenix._ The thought made my throat choke and my head spin, that until I either fell in battle or chose to Fade that I would be forever labeled as such - but I was in no condition, or any position of safety, that could allow me to come to grips with the idea that I was no longer mortal, and never would be again. I screwed shut my eyes, forcefully pushed away all distractions, and focused upon what was eminently and undeniably true: that if I could not summon enough strength now to see this through, that I would not have enough _time_ to grow accustomed to the concept of forever. "How exactly do you propose we reach Rivenstone?" I allowed my eyes to open again, set them upon the distant keep, unable for a moment to look at the gyre in all his terrible grace. "You said yourself that you are unfit to fly."

"Me? I have no problem with walking." The morbid smile he wore crept into his voice on cat's feet, subtle as mist. "I am still an Assassin, even grounded. They won't be able to find me, that much I can promise. But you..." The smile widened into a rictus-grin. "_You_ are so full of aether right now that I doubt you could find the bottom of it. It's always that way with the newly Ascended, until the excess burns off. But it also means that if you take to air, there is _no_ chance that they can catch you."

I stared at him, for a moment my mind refusing to accept what it was that he wished for me to do, and then - "You want me to fly. To Rivenstone. _Alone_."

He tilted his head, birdlike, and gestured with one hand. If I had a better idea...

Light spilled across the steppes, interrupting the perfect dark, and the grey half-glimpsed ovals of his pupils vanished even under that tentative illumination. The both of us snapped round to attend the source, and we saw that the signal-fires had been lit in the towers of Carcarron, with answering flames arising all across the distant landscape, dots of orange and white as far away, I thought, as Beluslan Fortress itself - but no bonfires leapt in answer at dark Rivenstone, and cursing under my breath at the gyre and his gall, I spread my wings as far as I could make them go, attempting to concentrate not so much on the appendages themselves, but what I wanted to do with them. Nico had once drawn parallels between an unflighted Daeva and a virgin on her wedding night, remarking that it was easy to know _what_ one wanted to do, but a bit more difficult to decide _how,_ precisely, to do it; feeling rather like the victim of an arranged marriage, I did not appreciate that metaphor now, consternated further by Oros cheekily vanishing into the landscape, cloaking his form with a ripple of aether like water, our time for planning and advisement come abruptly to an end.

A handful of experimental flaps of my wings provided me with nothing other than several gusts of wind and an eddying of newly falling snow; feeling like a fool, I called to mind the many times I had seen the shining wings of the Furiae and attempted to remember how it was that they left the ground so easily. In the end, I decided upon a running start, and backed to the very edge of where the portal had been, before bolting across the ruined outpost and attempting to bodily hurl myself into the air. The attempt went about as one might expect, for I had yet to compensate for the added weight of the wings, and I ended up skinning my palms across the frozen ground to prevent myself from breaking my nose upon the rocky soil. Full-fledged Daevas reading these words are laughing now at the picture I present, but I say that if none of you have Ascended upon the battlefield, with naught but a fickle Assassin to advise you, then remember that all of us were young and mortal, once, and thus allowed the gracelessness to make our mistakes.

Angry with myself, and cursing fluently the name of the gyre, I trudged back to the top of the hill and tried again. This time, I gained the air for several wingbeats before my kicking feet scrambled across the ground, and heartened, I persevered; after several such of these brief jaunts into the sky, hopscotching across the landscape, I stumbled across the notion to engage aether into the process of flight. I was untrained with it, of course, and efficiency was far beyond my grasp - but I was the daughter of a Sorceress, one of the most powerful to ever live, and sister to an equally powerful magician. Though I had not been blessed, as they had, with the ability to harness aether for destruction, I could yet learn from their examples, and tapped every store of knowledge I had upon the subject. It was not, as others may tell you, like binding all Hell with a hair - rather, it was as if I held a roiling, burning star between claw-fingered hands, and what slipped through my grasp was lost to the Abyss, but what I could yet retain my grip on, I put to use through sheer stubbornness of will. Brutal and inelegant, yes, but effective enough, provided what Oros said about my temporary store of aether was true.

The next attempt I made saw me well and truly, if haltingly, into the air, though it took all of my concentration to maintain it - though the Furiae and other such Daevas I had known made flight seem a simple thing, for a fledgling learning it with pain and death as the price for failure, it was hardly the simplest task I had ever put my intellect toward. With the spike and bulk of Rivenstone as my compass, I labored to remain aloft, snow and wind assaulting my face, aether and effort burning in the muscles of my back, phantom sensations of both a bottomless chill and a searing molten heat warring across my skin, as the aether coursing through me fought to reshape the world to its own whims. A near-miss with a stand of snow-tipped trees, their uppermost branches scraping hollowly across my borrowed armor, provided the inspiration to aspire to greater loft, and my teeth grit so tightly that it made the muscles in my jaw twitch and jump, I forced myself to rise higher, up and up into the eddying snow in a lightless sky. On the downstrokes, I could see plainly that the tips of my aching wings were still trailing aether in their wake across the night, the cobalt seeming bright as comet-streaks in the dark; any archers abroad in the black would find them easy targets, and thus all the more reason to hurry for Rivenstone, the snow-heaped keep slowly growing larger on the horizon.

I suppose now, with the benefit of both observation and hindsight, that new-fledged Daevas are allowed the time to explore their capabilities, their reach and boundaries both, not to mention conditioning their bodies to the rigors demanded of Aion's chosen; I had been given no such luxury, and by the time Rivenstone grew close enough that I could number the darkened windows of the keep, or rake my eyes across the undisturbed snow that betrayed no sign of inhabitance, my entire frame was sore and aching as it had never before been in my life. As a youth, I had been gradually introduced to the sword - it felt now, as I closed in upon my destination, as if all the years I had spent were thrust upon me all at once, my back aflame, the muscles in my neck and shoulders wound tight as hot-forged wire, knotted so thornily that I might not be able to raise my head from my chest with a month of time to recover. I kept track of my progress in spurts, slices of perspective tenuously chained together - a span of wingbeats, a lift of my chin and a risked glance at the silhouette of the keep to guage its distance, then a lowering of my head, bullish in my stubbornness, as I repeated the process once more.

I did not land, so much as I failed to continue flying.

My wings gave out abruptly, perhaps a hundred feet from my destination, and I dropped from the sky like a stone, plowing bonelessly into the snowdrifts, tumbling end over end before finally skidding several yards to sprawl in the banks as a graceless pile of limbs, feet in the air and the bases of my wing-arms half-crushed beneath me, no thought in my mind other than a certain gratitude that I seemed to have come through the disaster of a landing with all of my limbs intact. My strength left me in such a sudden rush that I felt swept hollow, empty from the lack of it; the chill of the snow spattered on my face and sinking down through the mail to soak into the pads of my ash-streaked armor should have iced me to the bone - but ridden by the fiery nature of my aether, it felt remarkably good, cool meltwater kisses smoothing the fever from my veins, cleansing with slow deliberation the soot and blood from my cheeks, and perhaps from my soul as well.

Despite the oddness of my position and the discomfort in my feather-tangled wings, I lay there with my eyes shut, allowing my breath to level and the tremor to quiet in my limbs, for far longer than I ought; when I rose, it was hobbling and awkwardly done, floundering in the snow as I stumbled to my feet with stiff motions and sore muscles, combating both the ache in my frame and the added weight of armor and wings, such that in hindsight I am unsure where I found the balance or the ability to rise from the drift. But once I _had_ gained both feet, one arm wrapped around my midsection, the opposing hand pressed to my throbbing temple, I was disconcerted to see that where I had lain there was now an unmistakable outline of wings in the bank, a snow-angel in the most literal of senses. Alarmed, I scuffed the silhouette as much as I could with the heels of my booths, not daring to kneel or bend for fear that I would not rise again afterward, tamping down the snow where I could and scattering it where I could not. But now no longer in active use, the heat of my phoenix-aether had begun to dissipate, and I was most of the way through the process of disguising my fall when a vicious wind kicked up - a Carcarrese wind, the frozen fangs of winter making themselves felt, piercing through the faint streamers of steam that wafted off of me to lance straight to my core. I began to shiver under that gale, my grasp of the mechanics of aether manipulation as yet too shallow to allow me protection from the cold, and knew that I needs must find my way inside.

A swift sweep of my gaze across Rivenstone's walls proved my worst suspicions, that the great double doors of black steel that marked Rivenstone's main hall were fully blockaded by a bank of snow wider than the span of my new-fledged wings, and twice my height and more; perhaps were I a fully educated Daeva, secure in the control of my aether, I could have cleared it without freezing to death, but I was yet a glorified mortal with delusions of grandeur, and so instead sent my eyes along the wall, searching for one of Rivenstone's many side entrances. A simple wooden doorway tucked into a crevice appeared promising, and I began to stagger towards it, my gaze on the goal, willing myself through sheer effort not to notice the ice beginning to refreeze in my wet hair, or the sharp trickling of halfmelt as it dripped down the back of my neck and infiltrating through chinks in the mail, or the sloshing of water in the armor's underpadding and squishing underfoot in the soles my boots with every step. My leg was beginning to rebel even under the pressure-bandage of my boot lacings, and the scar at my shoulder (_Through and through,_ echoed my memory, until even I was uncertain of the voice that spoke it) was pulsing fire with every heartbeat, making its presence known in the form of red-hot pins and needles that tingled all the way down my arm to the tips of my fingers.

As I stumbled for the doorway, I heard more than felt the tips of my feathers dragging across the snow, the silken rasp seeming incredibly loud in the open silence of the winter-clad steppes. A quick glance over my shoulder saw that I had unconsciously, and awkwardly, cowled my trembling wings behind me, their span too large and ostentatious of feather to neatly fold without a concerted effort, one that I could not yet find it in me to muster; for several moments I was at a loss as what to do with them, their weight unnecessary and upsetting my sense of balance now that I was aground, but they seemed a burden not easily dispersed, for when I turned my thoughts to banishing them in a flow of aether, as I had seen the Furiae do many a time, I could not duplicate their results.

I grit my jaw and continued onward, fixing my sight upon that narrow side-door, shuffling the problem of the wings to the side for the nonce. There was nothing to be done for them now, with more important issues at hand that I needs must hoard my strength in order to take care of. I was tired, and wet and shivering in a Carcarrese winter, and while I did not know if a Daeva could die of exposure, I was unwilling to find out.

A morbid chuckle escaped into the air from between my clenched teeth, my breath pluming in the night. It would be _just_ my luck, to come so far, only to fall victim to the winter.

The side door, half-rotted from near of a year left untended against the elements, gave easily under a sharp kick from my boot heel, and the resulting burst of wind and snow skirled lightly across the floor of what appeared to be the kitchens, dark and cold and full of unfamiliar shadows; I stood in the doorway for a contemplative moment reorienting myself before I moved fully inside, finding myself within seconds leaning heavily on the nearest wall, my knee trembling under my weight, it and the muscles of my shoulder twisting themselves into tangles of heated wire. Moving among the cooking tables, the racks of pots and implements hanging undisturbed after so long unneeded, I wanted very badly to sink to the ground and not rise until Oros joined me - but ah, then there was the thought that not only was there a chance that we were not the _only_ creatures who had found shelter in abandoned Rivenstone, but also that I could not bear to allow the proud gyre to see me in such a state, collapsed on the ground just barely out of the harshest reach of the icy wind - and that not even mentioning that if the Dragon's armies had followed me instead of the gyre, that I would be easy prey for capture, and then we would be right back where we had been before our daring rescue of Kit Brightwing.

Further into the keep I ventured, limping through the dark towards the far doorway of the kitchens, seeking both to clear the territory and find a more defensible position to hold; snow-shedding footprints and the silken scrape of my wet wingtips across the stone trailed in my wake, the only sounds in what had once been a thriving keep, now dark and full of silence and grief.

It was not until I emerged into the hallway just beyond the kitchens, and smelled the scent of smoke and burnt stone, that I began to shake, and not entirely from the cold.

I knew where I was. I would have known it in my sleep, tied upside-down and drunk; the horrid knowledge poured over me like a bucket of icewater, and thought I huddled my wings close, hunched my shoulders and bent my head, I could not refute the memories, nor hide from them. My feet began to move of their own accord, down the hall, around the corner, through a side hallway, and I could not cease moving no more than I could cease to breathe, could command my heart to finish beating - I did not want this, I did not want the memories, but I could not prevent them, my mind and my body locked in a struggle against the past that I was doomed to fail. My body walks in Rivenstone in winter, but my mind is somewhere different altogether -

_I dream awake._

_I remember the keep as it was, the halls outside the kitchens full of activity, the servants bustling cheerfully past me as they prepare the dishes for a feast, and Rivenstone smells of herbs and greenness. I am walking the corridors, as I always do, clad not in armor but in simple livery, a belted tunic of Rivenstone's crimson red with the heraldry of the Twinned Duchy picked out in white thread at my breast, soft black breeches and my favorite boots, the ones with soles so soft that they make no sound when I pace across the dark grey flagstones. It is a time of celebration in Carcarron, a festival to greet the summer; there will be a brax roasted whole over the firepit, and gamebirds hunted and served, and Raum has gone out of his way to ensure that even the lowest caste of dwellers in the keep will have a meal fit for Asphel's own table, generous as he always is, with the benefit of a thoughtful nature and the wealth of a Duchy to make certain that all goes according to plan._

_But the Lord of Rivenstone is sure in his **bones** that there is something amiss here in his pleasant keep. Anxiously, his fingers tapping a rapid legato along the surface of his desk, he asks of me to go out among his soldiers and his subjects, and to report him all that I should see out of place. Though I doubt that there is anything at all flawed or faulty in the keep - and I do not scruple to tell him so, a trait I know he values well in my post as his guard-captain - he is so like a brother to me that I cannot deny him his wishes; after all, Raum is his father's son, and heir to a duchy that emerges prosperous even when the worst of the winter spends its wrath against the landscape. It is his **duty** to worry for the safety of his people, even if that means he must leap to defend them against shadows of threats that are not truly there._

The stench of old smoke grew stronger, the further I went into the keep, the air stagnant and musty, full of undertones of mold and mildew and dust. My breath came in rattling gasps as I limped along the halls, turning corners, following the same path that I had followed on that day so long ago; but the going of it was slow, as I needs must maneuver around the obstacles that blocked the halls - broken chairs lying forlornly on the flagstones, silken twists of fallen tapestries destroyed underfoot or by fire, lamps made little more than pools of shattered glass, glittering faintly in the perfect darkness of the keep. My vision was such that I could see the evidence of flames along the halls, on the ceiling - soot stained in black, black as Oros's eyes, and while the outer walls and much of the inner ones were made of stone, the beams in the roofs were hewn from wood, and burnt black and spare where the fire had gnawed at their doughtiness.

_I am completing a circuit of the lower level of the keep, patrolling in the direction of the great hall, when I hear a woman's scream; I spin on the balls of my feet and stride back towards the kitchens, but there is smoke pluming through the hall and seeking every doorway, and some fool has the notion to shout **fire** and within moments there is a panic, servants fleeing in all directions, pouring out of the kitchens like rats deserting a sinking vessel. My heart leaps to my throat, and for a moment I am seized by fear; my mother died by fire, the flaming licking hungrily at her slender form, and I recall it only too clearly despite the decade that separates me from the memory - but I am Raum's captain of guard, and command comes reflexive to me. I begin to bellow for order, for my guardsmen, for chains of aid and for buckets of water, and the churning chaos slowly begins to organize itself under my direction - but the screaming has not stopped, and plunging into the choking smoke, the fabric of my tunic held to my nose and mouth, I search for the source of it._

_I find the head cook at the foot of a wall near the cooking fires, with one of the serving boys unmoving in her arms, screaming and weeping so that I cannot understand a word that she says - but when I crouch lightly on my feet to examine the boy, thinking that he has inhaled too much smoke, I see instead that his eyes are wide open and blank, that her hands are pressed tightly to his chest, and blood the color of good sherry is pouring out between her fingers, soaking his linen shirt and her white apron. There is no saving him, for the wound is too deep and too broad, a killing stroke if I have ever seen one. But it was not struck by a mere kitchen knife - no, this is the work of battle-steel, a sword at the least, and icy horror steals through my veins, draining all of the color from my face._

_And then I hear a clatter of arms, from the direction of the great hall, and I know with cold clear certainty that the fire is a distraction, and I have been tricked._

To reach my destination, I had to cross the great hall, though I desperately did not want to do so.

Once, it had been a vast and open hall, the largest single room in the keep, its walls lined with murals and tapestries, its beams hung with pennants and flags, with space enough beneath for a dozen trestle-tables and benches, enough to seat every man, woman and child that had lived in the keep. Now, its ceiling was collapsed, ruining its chapel-like grandeur, and the cracked, disheveled tiles were open to the night air; someone had been kind enough to cart away the bodies long ago, so that the stones need not be forever etched with the putrescent outlines where good men had fought and died for the Lord of Rivenstone, but even if it were only a figment of my imagination, I could still smell the blood under the blanket of snow, no longer fresh but dried from its tack, and run to rust where the rain had not washed it away. And though the dead were long since gone, a single risked glance into the open air of the hall revealed that the evidence of their passage yet remained, outlined in humps of white - piles of scattered weapons tarnishing across the blackened floor, their tips like pine needles poking out from rounded hillocks of snow, a helm that had rolled into a corner full of white and wet, soot-coloured beams collapsed across the floor like the trees they had been in life haloed with the evidence flurries. If I focused too hard, I could almost see the cinders still burning beneath them, an obscene and feral parody of the tame fires that crackled merrily on hearths all over Atreia.

I turned my shoulder to the spectacle, shuttered my eyes against the memories of the men that I had commanded, and moved on.

_My guardsmen, bless their steady hearts, are already beginning to rally in the hall against our attackers when I arrive; there must be a dozen of them, helm-masked one and all, head to toe in armor painted white, with the hated symbol of Sanctum marked across their chests and the white band tied around their upper arms. Elyos, then, and merciless as the stories paint them, Rivenstone's small complement of guard doing their level best to hold the line against their onslaught, shieldmates with the edges of their bulwarks locked in place, flanking those without defensive talents. The battle is already pitched, but Lieutenant Rhais shouts when she sees me enter the hall, and when we find each other behind the line she gives me her offhand blade, her indigo hair falling into her enormous green eyes, and asks me where in the Abyss they all came from._

_I do not know, and even when I have the luxury of contemplation, much later and after all is said and done, I still cannot claim to know. But in any wise, I do not have to be the perfect tactitian to understand that it does not matter; there are Elyos assaulting Rivenstone, and there is a fire blazing in the keep, and Raum is in untold amounts of danger. The nearest sergeant is charged with the holding of the line, and I grab Rhais by the shoulder and say that we must reach Raum, and quickly -_

_But in the center of the mass of white-armored Elyos, a slim figure holds up one gauntleted hand, points towards the ceiling, his whole arm writhing with living flame -_

_I have just enough time to shout in alarm before the roof caves in upon us in an explosive shower of sparks and embers, and men and women on both sides of the battlefield are too slow to get out of the way, the ceiling beams relentlessly crushing them under the greatness of their weight. Rhais and I hit the floor, arms up over our heads to protect them, and I hear the spit and crackle and crack as the fire takes hold of the massive, ancient beams, blazing as hot and wicked as a sentient thing as it gleefully tears into the wood. When we stagger to our feet, Rhais and I bracing each other with our open hands, we realize that the Elyos have cut us off from the main stairway, the one that leads to Raum's rooms -_

_But there is a rear staircase, the narrow one that the servants use to tend the rooms of the Lord of Rivenstone, and with my heart pounding in my throat so loudly I can barely hear my own words, I roar for my men to rally to me, for Lord Rivenstone, for all of Carcarron and the Twinned Duchy._

_I can only pray to Aion that this rescue will come in time -_

The stairs proved the worst of my challenges. Though the stone walls still stood, the stairs themselves had collapsed into little more than splinters and rot, speared through by the fall of another ceiling beam, one that has fallen at an awkward angle just shallow enough that I had a slender hope of climbing it to the second floor. Digging my short, blunt nails into the wood, I scrabbled for footholds in the charred wood, the balls of my feet finding precious little purchase as I labored, inch by inch, up that incline; I lost my grip near to three-quarters of the climb upwards and, in my haste to regain my hold on the wood, flared my wings out to compensate for the loss of balance and ended up striking them both quite painfully on the walls, claustrophobically close with the span of my feathers spread to take up all of the available space.

Tears pricked my eyes, against my stubborn will, and dizzied by them I lowered my face, pressed my forehead to the cool wood and my frozen hands; the sharpness of the pain in my wings was further insult to injury, and the only solace I could muster was that there was no one present to see me struggle to retain my dignity, crawling like a worm on hands and knees up a half-burnt slab of wood, soaked to the bone, shivering from cold and old horrors and the kind of razor-edged grief that defies explanation, to those who have never felt its sting.

I pressed my wings once again to my back, fought my way to the top of the beam, and from there limped up the rest of the steps, as ever the while the smell of smoke grew so thick it clotted in my throat.

_The fire is already roaring on the second floor when Rhais and I charge up the narrow steps; heat licks at my face, makes the stray strands of my raspberry hair curl, and the smoke forces my eyes to water and my lungs to seize, even as I struggle to keep from breathing too much of it. The Elyos pyromancer has been hard at his malicious work, attempting through brute force to find his way to Raum's chambers and burn him to ashes within it - there are melted holes in the stone walls, ringed in red where the mage has made the stone run to liquid, and when I see them I cast a worried glance upwards to the rest of the ceiling beams, even now catching fire as the blaze spreads further, cinders and ash raining down on us as we run through the halls. I hear cries, and a crash behind us - a part of the flame-wreathed ceiling crushing in the stairs, as simply and brutally as a man smashing a bottle with a club - and Rhais and I are now alone in the burning corridor, the rest of the guardsmen cut off by the blazing stairs. We exchange glances over our shoulders, our faces white and our mouths grim, but we do not speak and we do not falter. We cannot afford that luxury now._

_A small blessing - we take the Elyos by surprise. Raum, smart man, has barricaded himself in his rooms at the first sign of commotion, and the white-clad soldiers are attempting to break down the door when Rhais and I fall upon their rearmost rank, Rhais screaming in fury and I as silent as the grave. Half of the Elyos turn to face us, the rest forming up upon the door, and the attempts to reach within; but though Rhais and I thin their numbers with every stroke of our blades, cutting them down without mercy or pity, they are more than we, and in the taking of narrow quarters, the defenders always have the advantage._

_The flame is spreading to the ceiling; the beam cracks lengthwise with a noise like thunder, and Rhais and I and the Elyos all, we stop to look upwards, to consider how long that great width of wood might hold steady against the living blaze that the pyromancer has conjured. It cannot be very long, and so I take the opening and strike like a viper, the tip of the borrowed sword shoved through the visor-slit of an Elyos soldier, pulled back before it can bind in the skull or the helm. The Elyos falls, and two of his comrades surges forward to take his place as the rest break in Raum's door, and trample like wild brax into his chambers. I am too far forward to easily evade the rearguards' blades, and Rhais hauls me bodily back, earns a sword in the chest for the trouble of saving my life. The surprise does not fade from her face even when she goes to her knees, and the Elyos who killed her lifts a foot to kick her body free of his sword._

_The ceiling-beam cracks again, visibly bowed now under the acid teeth of the blaze and its own weight, and I am screaming deep in my chest, exhorting Raum in a snarling roar to hold steady, that I am coming._

There wasn't any smoke up in the corridor, of course, but I saw the evidence of it everywhere I dared to tread; I kept close to the walls, not entirely trusting the floor, and everything was caked in a layer of cold black soot so thick that my footprints were smeared grey ovals, the trailing edges of my wings soon rimed with wet ashes and my borrowed armor smudged rather more grey than pearly white. The final obstacle left between myself and my destination was another fallen beam - it had blocked much of the hallway once, and though the remains of it had since lessened and settled it was a trial forcing my shaking legs up and over the unsteady mess of blackened wood, one hand on the stone wall, bowed and curved from the heat of the fire that had been required to fell the beam in the first place.

The closer I came to the epicenter of my memories, the weaker beneath me felt my knees, and the harder and sharper stung the old pain in my shoulder, until every nerve seemed twisted and writhing in agony underneath my skin, my arm hanging from my torso as if a dead thing. I leaned heavily upon the stone, and knew when I reached the place in the hallway where I had once been unable to go any farther; there was a hole in the stone, a diagonal chip just under two fingers' breadth wide, mere feet away from an open and gaping doorway, and I shut my eyes against the sight of it, lifted my hand instead to explore the smoothness of the hole's carving.

With every beat of my staccato heart, my shoulder threatened to tear itself free of me, far more painful now than it ever was back then, because with the terrible wisdom of the past, I already knew what was coming.

_I can hear the scuffle in Raum's rooms, mere yards down the hall, hear his shouting and the ring of steel on steel, but though I fight valiantly to win free past the Elyos and reach him, they are standing with malicious stubbornness between myself and my goal. Screaming, full of murder and rage and the creeping terror that one feels only when faced with one's worst nightmare come to life, I cut down one of my assailants, hacking at his armor with broad, hard strokes, finding chinks in his protection at the knee, then the neck. The last one squares up against me, and I am prepared to do something utterly foolish in the pursuit of reaching Raum with all speed -_

_The ceiling-beam cracks again, one last, resonating time, and the wood falls in upon the Elyos, his startled cry swiftly silenced by the roar of the flame and the heft of an ancient Carcarrese tree. I am of a sudden alone in the burning hallway, only the bonfire-bright wood between me and Raum, but it is blazing hotly and I am afraid, I am **terrified**, and just for an instant I feel it in my bones that there is no force in Atreia that can persuade me to leap into the fire, not when it was fire that killed my own mother, not when I had to watch her die choking, the flesh boiling like water, peeling like curls of birch bark away from her slender frame -_

_Raum is calling me - just my name, over and over again between the clashes of his weapons against that of the Elyos, and I am rooted to the spot by fear, my gorge rising in my throat and sweat running in rivulets down my prickling skin._

_I cannot do this._

_I **cannot.**_

_The moment of truth has come, and I am hesitating; Raum screams for me with all his might, howling for the one person in all Asmodae who he can trust with his life, and I am not there when he needs me, trapped in my own cowardice, the smell of smoke rank in my lungs and my heart full of fear. I stagger backwards, my eyes shut, my free arm cast up over my face, struggling with every inch of me to fight my terror and **win**, because Raum **needs me** and if I do not go to save him then no one else will, no one else **can** -_

_The heel of my boot hits the wall, and before my gut can change my mind, I take a breath, hold it, and run for the blazing beam, leaping only when I can no longer bear the heat upon my skin -_

_I clear the blazing beam, my fate in that moment entirely in Aion's hands; I land on my knees and one splayed palm on the other side, holding my sword clear of the floor, panting with exertion and fear and exhilaration, but when I lift my head it is to see that there is a white-helmed Elyos in that hall beyond the inferno, and the bottom falls out of my stomach when I see that the blade in his hand is radiant with aether, burning white-hot, and wreathed in living flame._

_Forward I surge out of that crouch, and the Elyos is laughing as our blades meet. I do not want this fight, I want only to win past him, to reach Raum, to make up for the mistake that I made in allowing my fear to control me - but it is not to be; I am outclassed, outmatched, and when the Elyos slams me into the wall and shoves home that white-hot sword through my shoulder and into the stone beyond it, I am overwhelmed by the pain, the stench of my own charring flesh burning the insides of my nostrils, my vision spotting in white and black and red, and feebly I attempt to pull free of the wall and the sword that pins me to it, but six inches of blazing steel may as well be a mile -_

_My sword clatters to the floor, and I slump against the wall, dizzied and nauseous and struggling to remain conscious; the Elyos stoops to pluck my borrowed blade from the floor, rises with a little mockery of a bow as if in gratitude, and then he slips through the doorway only feet away from us, where Raum is screaming still, bellowing for me in a voice grown hoarse with desperation, but I am unable to go to him or even to cry out, trapped against the stone, pinned like an insect made ready for a shadowbox display._

_I am forced to listen as he bravely fights them one and all, forced to listen to the ring of metal as they disarm him, the thump of weight as they knock him to the floor, forced to listen as he continues to call for me to come to his side, even faced with his doom._

_The last words on his lips are my name, and then there is no more sound at all from within his chambers, save for the popping, sparking crackle of the fire that consumes his legacy whole._

_And after that, for me, there is only darkness, and the fathomless depths of my grief._

They found him facedown in his chambers, afterward; his head had been struck from his shoulders, gone with his murderers, a trophy-skull for the barbaric Elyos and whatever savage lord they served, with his body left a bloody symbol to the Duchy as a whole. That the flames had not consumed us both, nor choked the life from my butterfly-pinned frame, I can only blame on the whim of Aion Himself, though why he chose to spare _me_ then, and not the greater man that was Carcarron's heir, I have not the capacity to understand. From the Elyos dead around him, he had fought well and valiantly, a death worthy of the Asmodian princeling that he was - but such knowledge was cold comfort from within my cell, first at sickbed as my shoulder healed remarkably cleanly, then in a Carcarrese dungeon once I was well enough to be moved. I remember little of that time, immured in my sorrow as I was.

There was no prison that Avarran Carcarron could concoct, no punishment more dire, than the one that I had crafted for myself.

Or so I had thought, until he had denied me the death that I so richly deserved, and so desperately craved.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself on my knees in Raum's doorway; here too the carrion-thieves had been hard at work, removing the bodies and all the evidence thereof, but no mere corpse-hauler could remove the pooling spread of blackness across the worg-fur rug that had covered the floor of that open suite, nor disguise the violence that had taken place in those rooms, a story told in overturned furniture, charred walls and mildewed tapestries. I could not bear to look upon it, and when I lifted my hand to my face I discovered that I was weeping, openly and without sound, gulping down great lungfuls of air as I sob so deeply that my entire frame shook like a leaf in a hurricane. Feeling had begun to return in my left arm, and I flexed my fingers, then wove my arms across my belly, bent double around the sudden knot of sorrow that felt like an iron weight in my belly, fit to break me in half if I allowed it.

It was in such a position that I became gradually aware that I was not alone in the ruined keep; with studied care, I wiped my face with the heels of my hands, though I fear I did nothing more than smear about the ash and dried blood and the winter-chilled evidence of my grief, and when I was ready I braced a forearm against the doorway, used it to help myself to find my feet. When at last I turned, I saw the gyre standing respectfully some distance back from me in the hallway, water dripping from his hair in places and riming to ice in others, his leathers smudged with soot and his face seeming even more ashen and pale in the lightless depths of Rivenstone, eyes enormous and endless in their blackness, save for a brief reappearance of those distressing grey ovals in the centers of his irises. He said nothing, expression carefully blank, and I was more grateful than I could properly articulate that I need not face his wicked tongue at that juncture, spared his barbed comments and cynical words.

I pushed myself free of the doorway and traced the way that I had come, leaning somewhat less heavily upon the wall now that I had recovered some measure of myself, though I was careful that my guiding hand gave wide berth to the heat-carved mark in the wall. "There was something that I had to do," I said into the stillness, by way of both explanation and tacit apology, my voice full of gravel and low with grief; Oros nodded only once, and did not yet question me upon it, another small kindness of his for which I was absurdly grateful. Instead he turned as I reached him, leading the way across the fallen beam and back towards the collapsed staircase, giving me both his back and the benefit of his blindness in order to collect myself.

"There's a cupola with a fireplace, easily defensible," he said into the quiet without turning to look at me, his tenor hushed as if he were hesitant to disturb the deathly stillness of Rivenstone all around us. "You can warm up and collect yourself there." Briefly I wondered what had happened to the gyre, that he should respect so keenly when another mourned - but then we reached the stairway and its broken steps and angled beam, and though he slid down it with an agility and grace that I both hated and envied in that moment, all of my energies were soon devoted entirely to reaching the first floor still in control of all of my faculties, a process accomplished with decidedly less flair and skill than that of the gyre.

The cupola the gyre spoke of was the old armory, its treasures all plundered, long since removed, but the room itself was situated within spitting distance both of the great hall and my former suite a corridor over; I squelched the morbid urge to go a-hunting for my old things, recognizing with a resigned sigh that they belonged to a different woman, from another life, and instead I dragged my tattered carcass to the hearth and eased my bones down upon the worn stone, doing the best I could to fend off the other memories, faded somewhat about their edges but no less painful for it, of the many nights I had sat there before. Oros, to his credit, asked me no questions, only knelt with a creaking of wet leather to kindle sparks in the hearth, wood for a fire already laid, though the snow-wet bark was reluctant to take a flame even directly from his flint and tinder. In hindsight, I suppose he could have kindled it with aether - or asked me to do so, given my patron bird and unwanted affinity for the element - but I believe that he feared then that the slightest tug on the nodes of aether innate to the land would alert the roving Dragon to our presence in Rivenstone's heart; while the night would disguise the smoke from our fire, the telltale traceries of Elyos magics were more difficult to hide, and had a wider impact on the web of energy as a whole.

The half-lit ovals in his eyes winked out of existence as soon as the first spark was struck, and once again I found myself doubting their existence, for the moment so laden down with other troubles that it was preferable to pretend that I had never seen them at all.

Only once the stubborn wood had accepted the flame, and the door to the armory locked and barred from the inside, did Oros finally sit, his long legs sprawled before him and his back and side to the growing embers. First he removed the Last Word and its nameless silver mate from the sword-belts at his hips, laying the blades between us on the hearth; then, with an air of ritual, he began to remove all of the weapons secreted about his person, dozens of blades all told, most of them smaller than the length of my hand and many lacking hilts and crossbars, instead exquisitely balanced for throwing. Seeing the sheer number of them piled there between us, I felt it the sheerest miracle that he did not jingle whenever he so much as breathed. As he doffed himself of his weaponry with the careless air of a man stripping naked yet unaware of an audience, the fire grew behind him, and I turned to it to give its warmth to my face, rubbing my hands and watching the gyre sidelong for there was nothing else to watch; I was caught unprepared, then, when the metaphor my mind had chosen began to manifest, as he yanked open the buckles of the strap-harness that crisscrossed his lithe frame, tore open his leathers at the throat to expose his shirt and a triangle of pale skin, then began to wriggle out of the top half of them in earnest.

My eyes shot to the fire, hoping the flickering uncertainties of the light would disguise the sudden leap of colour to my cheeks and ears, while the feathers of my haphazardly folded wings shivered and shirred, betraying me in a much more tangible way. I had seen the gyre in all his ferocious beauty, at that last stand at the portal; it was not a thing so easily unseen, though I cursed myself for so easily becoming rattled by it. I have never denied that the Elyos were crafted lovely and lovingly by our shared deity, perhaps moreso than my own people, but before that moment I had never been so ashamed of it, nor ever so irritated by it. Oros, to his credit, did not so much as cast a glance in my direction, tossing the strap-harness to settle in a tangled pile, then more deliberately spreading his close-fit jacket to dry, leather side up on the stone floor between us. When he settled back against the hearth, feeling uncomfortable in the silence that contained only the mild crackle of the flame, I braced for one question and received quite another: "Why do you still wear your wings?"

It was said with mild curiosity, and without a hint of sarcasm or scorn. I studied the fire and warmed my hands before it, rather that risk looking at him. "I have not had much of a chance to _practice_ with them, Oros," I said crisply, sensing more than seeing the stiffness in his back at my tone, even though I had not meant to offend him. Confound the gyre and his monumental pride. I let that statement lay between us for a moment, as much of a blade as the Last Word, before I cleared my throat and amended it. "It would be more precise to say that do not know how to _un_wear them."

The stiffness began to recede, slowly, as if it cost him great pain to allow it to leave. "Of course. I'd forgotten how difficult it can be, in the beginning." He shifted his weight to lean forward with his elbows on his thighs, ran his hands through his white mane to sleek the wet hair back from his face. His shirt was soaked through to the skin, grey linen clinging to the muscles of his back. "Your wings are a part of you now, no less than your legs, or your arms. They respond best to physical cues, not mental ones. Rather like how you don't need to think about lifting your arms - it merely happens."

"Will transmuted into action," I said, thoughtful, and I chanced to glance at him, saw his head bob in the affirmative, allowing his hands to drop as he contemplated the floor.

"Exactly. Although there are variations, and exceptions." He rolled one shoulder absently, a gesture that seemed a habitual loosening of his muscles even though every line of him said that he expected no trouble, or at least, not the kind of trouble that could be solved with the sword. "Kit, I know, summons hers with a particular note of song. And Trist -" He paused, sat up somewhat, his shoulders rising as the bow of his back reversed itself. "Archery aside, Trist is almost entirely a creature of mental faculty. Given his flaws, I suppose he has to be."

"He would have made an excellent Sorcerer, then," I remarked offhandedly, thinking not of Terekai but of my keen-minded mother, of the burning-bright intellect of my brother; Oros lifted one shoulder and turned his head, prompting for elaboration with the slight arch of a brow - but I shook my head and allowed the subject, and the conversation, to drop. The gyre made a low noiseless exhalation of breath, somewhere between a sigh and a huff, and I retreated into myself for long minutes, flexing muscles in my back and shoulders, lifting and folding and refolding my wings, attempting to zero in upon the mystic combination of motion and intent that would banish them from my back. When I hit upon it, it stole over me suddenly, a wash of heat and aether - the feathers of my wings dissolved in a hot flood of energy, tumbling across my back and sides exactly as if someone had overturned a bucket of water above my head, right down to the crawling sensation of water rivuleting down my skin, pooling around my thighs and at my feet, before evaporating into wisps of steam.

In the wake of my wings came a rush of adrenaline, the victor's reward for a job well done - but when it passed, a pattering of heartbeats later, I began to shudder and shiver in earnest, the water soaked into my underpadding chill against my skin and the tentative heat of the little fire far from enough to banish the cold. I began to understand why Oros had shrugged out of part of his leathers (although wet leather, I grant, must have been quite uncomfortable, perhaps even chafing delicate Elyos skin) and studiously, carefully avoiding the gyre and his terribly interested black gaze, I doffed Kit's loaned armor, one piece at a time. The plate was surprisingly easy to pull away, segmented and articulated as it was, designed as much for ease of movement as it was protection - the straps and buckles were designed in such a way that, even aching and sore as I was, I did not require help in order to rid myself of it. Each piece was given a perfunctory swipe with my bare hands, to rid it of the worst of the damp; it was hardly the proper way to store armor, even for the briefest of times, but with the both of us wet and cold to the bone, I had not the luxury of dry cloth, nor the time and inclination to spend longer in the care of the pieces. The mail undertunic was the hardest part, ice grinding in the links from my exposure to the elements and not yet melted, and three-quarters of the way through the process of hauling it up over my shoulders I was out of breath and exhausted, ready to quit entirely - but then the gyre deigned to help me, and both furious and humiliated, I allowed it. I would not have won free of the damned mail any other wise, and when he stood briefly to lay out the chain tunic on the floor alongside his own jacket, his face impassive as the stone walls around us, I watched him do so and did not comment, though acid burned on my tongue to do so.

Even then, there was rapidly forming an unspoken agreement between us; we were strangers in a strange land, hunted and outnumbered, and if either one of us wished to survive to return home, we needs must rely upon the other. I wondered if it stung him to know that, as much as it stung me.

The underpadding came off last, all of it soaked through to the simple woolen clothes I wore underneath, and the padding I ranged out along the hearth, surrounding the gyre's store of weaponry but not daring to touch any of it. If I meant to wear the armor again, the padding would be necessary, but it would have to dry in the meager warmth of the fire, as much as it could be made to do. Bereft of the weight of the armor and all its varied accouterments, I felt both naked and oddly free; I missed the reassurance of the heft of plate, but I was well tired enough to be pleased that I could draw a full breath without fighting the mail every step of the way, and without the wet padding to anchor me, I could feel the fire beginning to thaw the ice from my hair and the water from my shirt and breeches.

But there was one last thing that needs must be attended, before we could proceed so much as a step further.

"What do we do now?" I swung my head to face the once again seated gyre, saw something flicker across his sharp features that he swiftly and carefully tucked away, favoring instead the solemn expression he had prepared in face of our dilemma. He leaned forward again, away from me, lacing his fingers together between his knees and training his dark eyes upon the armory door.

"Our options _are_ rather limited, aren't they?" he noted in an ironic voice, tilting his head somewhat to the side, as if he had glimpsed something a long distance off, but had yet to decide if he liked it or not. "There is the Abyss, of course - not a place I would want to risk even with the entire Furiae and a score of allied legions at our backs. There is addressing the Dragon directly - either as defectors in our own right, or as prisoners of war." He grimaced, the motion making his black eyes narrow to slits. "But then, there's your damned _geas_."

"If the Dragon catches us," I noted softly, watching his face as I spoke the words, "we will wish that we had risked the Abyss."

His eyes fell briefly shut, white lashes stark against his pale cheeks, and he could not, or would not, muster an argument to that.

"Nico suggested we ride the rifts," I suggested next, uncomfortable with the notion, and even before I had finished the sentence he had begun to shake his head and straighten, to then glance back over his shoulder at me and lay a hand upon the Last Word, as to underscore his point. When he touched it, black and red aether began to swirl along the runes carved into the Balaur blade's surface; in the back of my mind, I felt something in the sword shift and clarify, and if it was not quite an awakening of whatever fell thing haunted the sword, I was that much more grateful for it. But Oros's gaze was steady, the slant of his white-lipped mouth grim.

"If our straits are so dire that it's come to that, I would rather we made a stand here. We'll be safe enough here for the night - if _I_ were hunting two Daevas, I'd expect them to be in the air, not gone to ground." He lifted his long fingers from the blade, and the sense I had had of a thing rising and unfolding receded, coiling back into its corporeal fetters. "But come morning, we'll have hours, at best, before they find us." He did not need to elaborate for my mind to spiral out the natural conclusion of such an action; we would hold the armory for hours, perhaps a day at best, assuming the Dragon's troops did not merely collapse the decaying castle down around our ears. Perhaps we would even take many of his warriors with us, but unlike the stand at the Gate, there was nothing here to protect, nothing to remain and fight for. It was suicidal in the worst kind of way.

But then, Oros seemed to regard the rifts as little better than throwing ourselves upon our own blades, and neither of us were willing to cross the Abyss, or treat with the Dragon.

_Oh, Jareth, how I wish you were here. You always had a better head for strategy than I did -_

Jareth.

Jareth, my brother, the other half of my soul, the last man in Asmodae who was willing to do _anything_ to help me, because we were a part of each other - Jareth Azhdeen, a mage in full command of his considerable faculties, at the Academe at Synedell, surrounded by casters of all stripes and the library-collections of generations of Sorcerers and Summoners, some few of them Gate-casters in their own right. My own words echoed in my ears: _It is several weeks by foot from Carcarron, up in the mountains, but only four days from the keep as the crow flies -_

"Oros," I said, a fox-crazy, insane idea crawling like spiders up from the base of my spine, "how _much_ do you trust me, exactly?"


	22. Chapter 22

To say that Oros objected to my proposal would be a little like claiming that the malicious winter that raged outside the armory door was, perhaps, a touch cool.

"Have you gone utterly _mad_?" growled the gyre, head tilted, white brows scowled over his dark eyes and his voice deceptively quiet, and by no means level or calm. "Rare is the daeva that _completely loses their mind_ upon Ascension, but that can be the only explanation for your antics, so far as I see."

"Oh, come now, Oros," I remarked in the most reasonable of tones, sitting upright upon the hearth and arching my own brows at his stubbornness. "It is not such a terrible thing as all that."

"Isn't it? Allow me to lay it plain for you," said Oros, timbre acrid and dark as he mirrored my stiff-backed pose, with a trifle of incredulous indignation thrown into his posture for good measure. "The _plan_, such as it stands at the moment, is for the pair of us to leave this place under cover of night into a raging blizzard outside - and you a new-fledged daeva who can barely summon and dismiss her own wings, nevermind efficient flight with them - only to set course for a set of mountains so remote that they're practically uncharted territory, braving blinding winds, driving snow, hostile terrain and Aion knows what other dangers lurking in this forgotten, frozen _hellhole_," here he gestured sharply outwards with the flat of his hand, slashing briefly at the air, "only, should we even prove successful, to reach Synedell and an Academe for the Asmodian mage elite, whereupon we are to _throw ourselves_ at the mercy of your brother, who I can only assume is one of the aforementioned mages, in the feeble hope that he can somehow aid us in getting home again - completely ignoring the very real possibility that even if _he_ doesn't turn us over to the authorities," and from the rise of his brow and the dip in his tone, I gathered that he expected exactly such to occur, "that there is an entire _complex_ of students and Daevas both who would happily do so, merely for the glory of having secured two Elyos prisoners in the course of this budding war." He sat back upon his hips, one shoulder leaned against the uprights of the fireplace, and folded his arms across his chest, the damp fabric of his shirt tugging and creasing with every movement. "_That_ is the plan which you would have me agree to, Jaya. Did I leave anything out?"

"You forgot," I said cuttingly, scowling at Oros and my back board-straight with imperious affrontedness, "the pursuit of the White Dragon's forces both on foot and on the wing, my injuries, our lack of provisions of any kind, and the fact that even _if_ Jareth can get us across the Abyss and back into Elysea, in the very act of doing so we deliver to the Asmodian Daevas a mage who can form a Gate in Elyos territory, an asset in war if ever there was one. Trust, gyre, that I am well aware of the risks." I growled it right back at him, one palm rubbing gently at the rough-cauterized flesh where once had been the wound that nearly took my life. It hurt to touch it, but the ache was bizarrely comforting; pain was a known quantity, a companion with which I was all too familiar, and it helped me pull my thoughts into sharp focus, an edge of clarity that was nearly as hurtful as the wounds themselves. "I am also well aware that every other path ends with death or capture, which is only a slower form of death. It's Jareth or the Barrow," and I lifted my free hand to cuff and scrub at my soot-marked face, all at once feeling the exhaustion of the day's events heaped upon my shoulders, "and I am not ready nor willing to undertake that journey a second time."

There fell a hollow silence, then, filled only by the crackling of the fire, spitting and steaming as it found pockets of moisture whilst gnawing hungrily at the wood; Oros turned on his hips to stir the embers with the rust-pitted poker, reaching with his unoccupied arm to tug free fresh kindling from a snow-spotted pile he had assembled within reach for exactly such purpose. I took the opportunity to run my hands through my hair and briefly shut my eyes, willing the tiredness in my limbs to leach away, wishing ardently for the bottomless strength I had felt both during and immediately after my Ascension, when adrenaline and will had sufficed where the depth and breadth of my experience had failed. Ah, but if wishes were Daevas, beggars would fly - and lifting my head, I saw that Oros was watching me where I sat, the poker set aside and his mouth pressed into a thin white line, curiosity glittering in his black eyes yet held in abeyance by his pride.

Doubtless he had questions - always and forever was the proud gyre full of questions, a thirst for secret knowledge that filled him to the brim, and yet could never be satisfied - but then there was the matter of our bargain and his sworn promise not to seek the knowledge of who I truly was. If there was a price for intelligence that he would not pay, it was the consequences of breaking the agreement that he had perhaps in haste struck, the sting and stigma of the oathbroken.

If he regretted that bargain now, however, he did not speak of it; instead he cast his glance away, and I moved my own to my serpent-scarred leg, flexing and stretching the long muscles in order that I might loosen some of the tension ratcheted beneath my bootlaces. When he spoke into that long, unhappy silence, it was entirely unexpected, and if I started at the sound, then I blame exhaustion and the events of the day. "Get what rest you can. I'll wake you before dawn." He rose from the hearth in a flurry of squeals from his leathers, The Last Word in hand and blessedly quiescent - a damp imprint in the shape of his backside remained on the stone, and even that began to steam off as the hearth gradually warmed to the fire's influence. Swiftly he had unbarred the door in a trice, his slender form through and outside before I could ask him where he thought to go, and with only the bottom half of his leathers on.

I made to call after him, tasted a hint of desert wind in the air and thought better of it - perhaps there was some clever trick to keeping off the cold wind, much like Kit's cantrip with my bandages in the bath, that apparently did not apply to wet clothing. In any case, I was left much to my own devices in the fire-crackled quiet, and after some deep consideration, moved my scattered padding and all of Oros's common blades to the floor that I could measure my length along the hearth itself, its warmth the only chance I had to awaken in the morning and yet be able to move. For all the exhaustion of the day, the strange conversion from mortal to immortal in a literal trial by fire, the long flight to Rivenstone and the emotional turmoil found in facing my own failure, sleep was fitful and hard-earned; I woke twice to an empty armory, and once to see the gyre leaning over me with poker in hand, stirring the dying embers at my back without seeking to wake me in the process. "Go back to sleep," he chided gently, and for perhaps the first time in our acquaintance, I did not hesitate to follow his orders. If I dreamed, it was only with such briefness that even I do not remember them.

When Oros woke me, true to his word, it was to chill, darkness and a rough shake of my shoulder, and I rose from my restless slumber disoriented and bleary-eyed. He knelt on the floor, his leathers assembled and the straps from the harness crisscrossing his wiry frame, weapons secreted about his person, and, on the whole, appearing far more put-together than I felt; when I opened my mouth to admonish him for such a rude awakening, never mind allowing the fire to snuff itself out under its own weight, he instead pressed his forefinger to his lips in the universal gesture for silence. "There's an Asmodian patrol in the ruins," he whispered, and immediately all of my senses sprang to attention, the ennui accrued in sleep draining from me all at once, as if my aching frame were a rain-barrel and his words had smashed out the bottom.

"Have they found us?" I whispered back, forgetting all at once my crossness with him, or the very rightful disgruntled attitude to being handled in such a fashion; though I had sat up, slowly reorienting myself through the anchor that was the gyre, his hand yet remained on my shoulder, and it was not until I batted it aside that he released me, neither of us with the luxury of being irritated or shamefaced. He shook his head and stepped out of the kneel, up and back on the strength of his legs alone only to turn fluidly and pad for the door, a smooth, uninterrupted motion that made my sore muscles tremble merely to watch performed.

"Not yet; it seems a routine sweep," he noted, hovering near the door as though he could divine the position of our pursuers by doing so. "Get your armor," he added after a moment, flicking his gaze back and forth between me and the door, seemingly expecting to be discovered at any moment. He had a remarkably anxious way of seeming to fidget and pace nervously, whilst standing completely still, that worried me nearly as much as the potential of being found. "We must away, quick as we can, and I want to leave as little evidence that we were here as possible."

"For the mountains, then?" I plucked up and began to shake out the underpadding; still damp and, with a half-night's airing, beginning to smell of mildew, but no longer soaked through nor sequined with ice crystals, which for even that much comfort I needs must be grateful. Oros hissed impatiently between his teeth, shifting his weight from foot to foot and staring at the door, one hand endlessly smoothing the Word's pommel.

"Yes, damn you, the mountains, and Synedell," he agreed as loudly as he dared, a volume which was not much over the faint sounds of cloth rasping against itself, and added in a muttering tone entirely for himself rather than for me, "though Aion alone knows why I'm going along with this idiotic plan." I would have found some witty rejoinder, I daresay, if my shoulders had not chosen that moment to make their displeasure plain at the previous day's activities, so stiff and pain-filled that it was a trial in itself merely getting the padding on; determined not to whine and groan like a weak-hearted wretch, I set my jaw and panted noiselessly between my teeth, fighting for every inch of fit. The chain mail was no easier and far heavier - all that I can say for it is that once I had the damned hauberk over my head, gravity assisted the rest of the process, helping to smooth down the irregularities in the padding that I had not enough patience nor strength to tug into true.

From there it was the armor itself, and as I donned them I could not fail to notice regular discolorations on the insides of the enameled pieces, where the metal would fall to rust if not tended; wincing, I apologized silently to both Kit for the abuse of her property, and to the soldiers in my youth who had taught me my trade, one of the most insistent lessons of which was the decent care of your weapons and armor. By the time I was buckling on the last of it, tugging tight the straps and adamantly ignoring the burning along much of my frame, particularly in my sword-pierced shoulder and the knots of scar tissue along my leg, Oros was freely and openly moving back and forth before the door, keenly aware of every moment that ticked by, our chances of escaping undetected dwindling by the second.

"Alright," I said, "Let us go -" and scarce were the words out of my mouth that Oros had seized me by the elbow and pulled me through the door, open and shut without so much as a click of the latch to betray him. I bit my tongue on a sharp chastisement, briefly tempted to bat his impetuous hand away; but I heard the distant echo of boots crunching on fresh-fallen snow, oddly amplified by the decaying corridors of the castle around us, and I bit down on my vexation, decided that we hadn't the time to quarrel, could scarcely even afford disagreement upon our course of action at this juncture.

He paused where we stood, tilted his head to study the sound of the tromping boots, and then pulled me down the corridor with an expression of intense concentration - but I was better oriented in Rivenstone and pulled upon that wellspring of knowledge now, for though we were headed away from the noise, the hallway looped around queerly and would have brought us upon the heels of our pursuers, not to mention deeper into the castle. At the next cross-hall I pulled the gyre off of his stubborn course, down a narrower path, and though he resisted a determined glare at his hawkish frown won his cooperation; none too soon, for I tucked us in an alcove housing the house-shrine to Aion just as the snow-wet stomp grew inexplicably louder. Oros pressed himself to the wall without needing to be asked, every muscle of him tense as strung wire, and I bit down on harsh breath, straining my senses to track the Asmodian patrol as they explored further into Rivenstone.

They carried no light, of course, and with dawn not yet arrived, the shadowed innards of the keep were black as pitch; I resisted the fresh impulse to check and see if the mysterious pale ovals had reappeared in the gyre's dark eyes, and instead focused upon the muttered chatter of the soldiers, the typical back and forth communication normal of a search and destroy mission that provided precious clues to their state of mind. I recognized none of the voices, but to hear others speaking Asmoth after so long stranded in the sea of Elyos - ah, I cannot deny that it felt like a long-delayed homecoming, even though my heart thudded in my throat and with every word the gyre drew tenser and tenser, his fingers clawlike and digging into the stones of the wall.

Down the narrow corridor the patrol searched, and from the corner of my eye, I saw as Oros's hand moved silently from the wall to the hilt of the Last Word; any moment we would be discovered, either by the searching soldier or Oros's proactivity, and I hunched my shoulders and bit down on the inside of my cheek, ready to assist in any way possible. But just before they reached the house-shrine's alcove, the the patrol's commander called the soldiers back, far less alert than he should have been, his echoing voice almost bored and quite definately insouciant - I gathered from his relaxed tone and less than thorough methods that the mortals, at least, did not think us hidden here, the assignment to search the ruins makework and therefore deserving of only cursory examination.

As the noise of their boots faded away, back into the keep, I felt furiously angry at my own former countrymen, oddly enough on the Dragon's behalf; if they had been _my_ soldiers, there would have been no room unopened, no nook or cranny unsearched. It was mortifying in a way that I cannot accurately describe, the fact that we were _not_ found in that dark and snow-damp wreck, even though I could no longer properly call myself an Asmodian and, by all accounts, should have been overwhelmingly happy not to come to conflict with even a small contingent of the Dragon's forces.

The patrol evaded for the nonce, I led us out of the ruins of Rivenstone Keep, skirting the fire-damaged areas and keeping an intemperate ear listening for the Asmodian troops, and any evidence that they might be doubling back. I was further infuriated, beyond any sound reason, when they did not do so, and we won our way out into the open air without further trouble, my stiff muscles gradually unbinding themselves, though my shoulder and leg still ached powerfully, long after they should have ceased to do so. The open air was a shock, compared to the stillness and relative warmth of the keep's inner workings - it rushed in on glacial wings when Oros shouldered open a side-exit to a low-walled courtyard, the iron-bound door nearly rusted into its frame, all the plants once tended there left to run rampant and then die in tangled profusion along the ragged-edged beds. The wall was scarce higher than the top of my head, and over it in the distance I saw that though dawn had not yet lit the winter-dark skies, there was a place among the mountains nested in the east where the blackness had begun to fade instead to a purplish blue; we hadn't a moment to lose. The only blessing Aion chose to bestow upon us was that the blizzard had spent itself in the night, and though there was a fresh dusting of snow along the wall and the ground around us, it did not assail us directly, and the clouds had vanished almost entirely.

"There," I said, jutting my chin towards the looping, switchbacked ribbon of whiteness among the dark peaks, that marked the road to Synedell; it was a caravan-track, studded here and there with the inns and small outposts erected for comfort of the merchants that ferried trade goods and supplies from Carcarron to Synedell and back, but all the lights were darkened, and nothing moved upon the mountainside. The town of Synedell itself was a darker smudge, deeper in through the peaks, only just barely visible in the slowly-lightening dusk, and the Academe was not visible at such distance at all.

Through the open door and echoing in the darkened corridor, there came a noise of metal banging, such as a soup cauldron dropped or a breastplate hammered. The pair of us whipped round to stare down into the dark, and then came shouting in deep-chested voices, the soldiers now alerted and hard upon the hunt. I felt the gale of Oros's aether against my cheek, intruding in my lungs, sand and autumn warring with the lancing cold of the winter air around us, and I turned to face him, saw the expanse of his knife-point wings already summoned and spread, his face painted with a calculating and pessimistic frown. I began to ask him what in hell he thought he was doing - such an open display of aether-use would only bring the soldiers down upon us all the more swiftly - but I suppose the gyre must have felt the lack of time even more keenly than I did, for he only hissed, "Hold tight," and snatched me up by the side-latches in my armor; two mighty heaves of his wings and we had left the ground, and with an ungainly squawk I scrabbled for purchase on Oros's harness-straps, my fingers rictus-white and swallowing down a yowling scream that emerged instead as a high, thin keen from the back of my throat.

I hadn't time to glance at the gyre's face, or even to take tack of where we were headed, instead forced to pray that Oros had the sense enough to take us in the correct direction. I focused instead on getting my arms through the straps of the harness, one arm over his right shoulder and the other under his left arm, gripping his back just above the base of his wing. It put us in uncomfortably close proximity, my lungs full of his aether and his scent, the Last Word in its scabbard bumping against my leg with every wingbeat - he himself had locked his hands behind my back under my arms, teeth grit and breath harsh against my hair as he labored to propel us through the air - for the gyre was not a creature meant to carry a soldier in half-plate, with a chain mail shirt besides; even Trist would have been hard-pressed to keep me aloft, in such a situation, and I steadfastly chose not to contemplate what would happen either were I dropped, or his strength gave entire and we fell together from the skies.

For a moment, I had an impossibly vivid, tactile remembrance of my dream of plummeting from the Crown of Nails, Raum and I clutched lover-close, and with ragged breath my fingers dug harder into Oros's leathers, tangling in the straps as much as I dared and attempting not to ponder the significance, even as I choked back my distaste for being touched. I had very little choice in the matter, now, if I wanted to see another day.

The gyre is a stubborn man - that much I will gladly grant him as a boon, for I think we would not have covered half the distance we did that dawn, were it not for his refusal to surrender to weakness; but though we flew in silence, my shoulder afire where I asked it to perform beyond its endurance and Oros likely faring little better, we expected pursuit to appear in the skies or aground behind us at any moment. When I had husbanded enough strength to do so, I seized myself up enough in the straps that I could peer over Oros's shoulder and past his frantic wings, but whenever I did so, I saw nothing but the forlorn and lonely expanse of tree-peppered snow that was the moors I had been born to. The light grew gradually brighter as the sun slowly climbed the far side of the mountains, culminating at last in a bright silent explosion of light that lit the world as dramatically as anyone could have asked, shading the white-draped landscape with gold, limning the gyre and myself in halos of sunlight, extravagant and promising a gloriously beautiful day. It woke him and spurred him on, when his head had drooped almost to my shoulder and his strength seeming nearly spent; we managed another handful of miles before this unexpected second wind had been all but ground out of his bones. Eventually, even Oros must run dry of stubbornness.

When we landed, it was ungently and in a bank of snow bordering a small mountain-fed lake, the surface solid-frozen and mirrorlike, lined with a thick green growth of pines save for the small clearing where we touched down; the gyre managed not to plummet immediately into the snow, instead setting us heavily on our feet, weaving and unbalanced, and I pried my stiff arms out of the harness scarce moments before he sat down hard on the snow-covered ground, his knees unfit to hold him upright and his wings slowly banished back into the aether, with an awkward roll of his narrow shoulders that told me the very gesture had pained him.

I sat in the snow just out of arm's reach, feeling the need to assert my desire to stay out of close physical contact, but deciding that I would seem ungrateful if I retreated much further; instead I massaged the life back into my arms, numb from the harness-straps and my fingers now full of pins and needles, and caught my breath as the gyre fought his way back to coherency. After several long moments of simply breathing in and out, he stripped his gloves from his hands and began to rub the pads against themselves, reddened from what I could not fail to recognize as chilblains, as like gained not from the wind at altitude, but the prolonged contact with the backside of my armor.

He had not said a word, had not so much as shifted in discomfort and therefore risked dropping me entirely, focused completely upon our escape; I as like owed him my life, now twice over, if I were honest enough with myself to admit it.

"Where are we?" he asked at last, daring to break the silence of the lakeside which had seemed almost a holy thing; I sat up straight and took stock of the shore and the forest that bordered it, glad for a distraction and, for a moment, to be of some use.

"One of the lakes in the foothills, at the very edge of Rivenstone's borders. A little ways south and west of the caravan-road yet." He was looking up at me through a sheaf of his white hair, dark eyes exhausted but expectant, and only for something to fill the quiet I added, "It does not have a name, on any of the Duchy's maps."

"The lake, or the road?" A feeble sally at best, but it cheered me somewhat to see him attempting humour; the corner of his mouth was twitching in a ghost of his usual smirk. I arched a strawberry brow, mimicking haughtiness and feigning to be unimpressed, but there was no feeling behind it, too glad was I to see his strength already returning.

"Either, or both. - Will you be well enough to continue?" I inquired, covering over as best I could my concern for his welfare. He rubbed his hands hard against his face, then the sides of his neck, eyes falling shut as he stole a moment of rest, for all the world as if he were not hip-deep in snow on the side of some lonely lake.

"By wing, you mean? Give me half an hour, and we'll go on. I daresay we can't afford much more than that," he added darkly, his lashes rising from his cheeks as he frowned down at the snow whilst tugging his gloves back on, a stormcloud-scowl fit to melt the ground beneath him. "It'll be more difficult without a proper rest, but difficult has never stopped me before."

"Without ...?" I began, my brows fret as I glanced at him, but then I recalled how swiftly he had answered the call to trouble, that late night so long ago in Sanctum, when an intruder had bid fair to see me in an early grave; considered also, the fact that I had napped on the hearth, but Oros had given no evidence of slumber himself, would not have risked it, the pair of us dreadfully exposed as we were and cowering in the ruins of Rivenstone. Clearly, the lack of rest was having an affect on him, else he would not have dared to mention it, and almost before I knew what I was doing I had leapt to my feet and drawn myself up to my full height, looming over the gyre and bristling with anger, never mind that wretched flight in the Asmodian dawn that could very likely have ended with us both crashing into the lake, but had not. "Get up," I hissed, and if Oros seemed thoroughly confused and somewhat suspicious, well, he had every reason to be. But before he could voice his objections, I crouched down and seized him by the arm, and began to drag him on main bodily strength towards the treeline; he dug in his heels and protested, and I whirled upon him with all the fury I could muster, enough so that for the span of a heartbeat, at least, I cowed the gyre and his damnable pride. "Into the trees with you, you blind idiot, and for the half-hour you require you will _sleep_, or so help me Aion I will deliver us both to the Asmodians myself, for all the good you will do us, continuing as you are."

I expected him to object further, and was ready for it, aching to smash the gyre in his smug jaw and put him under with my own hands; but instead, perhaps due to the depth and breadth of his exhaustion, he bowed his head and proceeded almost tamely into the cover of the pines, under my supervisory gaze tucking himself under the skirt of snow-capped green needles that girded the trunk of a particularly enormous specimen, his back and temple leaned up against the bark where it was moderately warmer, arms folded across his chest and his legs stretched out before him so that only his boots protruded from cover. He flicked his eyes open just once, to see me sitting across the way, nearly mirrored in position except that I was massaging the scars in my leg to pass the time - at my black glare, he settled once more against the tree and was napping in minutes, his breathing regular and pluming steam in the cold air, jaw slightly dropped, white lashes collecting ice crystals against his cheeks.

The stillness of the forest enveloped us; there were no birds near the lake to give voice to the morning, having retreated either to the somewhat more temperate south, or north to Synedell where the townspeople fed them all through the winter snows, but there was a silent sense of life, suppressed and cautious all around us. I glimpsed a snow-fox once, padding through the openings between the trees, giving Oros and myself wide berth, but other than that retiring creature, little stirred where I could see it. It was peaceful, and restful, and I felt in that place as if I could commune with the heart and soul of the very earth - but it did not feel, as it once had, that I belonged in that place, and it was that queer alienation that gave me remove to wake the gyre, after I had judged the better part of an hour had passed. A few more minutes' sleep could only aid our cause, as it seemed we had not been tracked to the nameless lake.

I roused him rather more wisely than he had done for me, calling his name softly enough that it did not echo in that green space; he came to startled and all in a rush, hands to his swords and the Word already half out of its sheath, the black blade's rune-carved sigils stirring sluggishly to life even at that slight provocation. I admonished him with only a brow-raised glance, and he flashed a sheepish look as he pushed the sword back into the scabbard, coming slowly to his feet, his movements less stiff than before - I wished that I could say the same, for despite my efforts, my leg troubled me all the journey back to standing upright, face pale and mouth a grim line that as like did not inspire the gyre to acts of further heroism. "So," he asked, rolling his shoulders and shaking the sleep from his long limbs, "what's the plan of action?"

I took stoock of the position of the sun, of where we stood relative to the lake; I could not see the mountains where we stood, save for their very tips glimpsed through the pines. "We can yet go further today," I noted, contemplating. "In as much as we skirt the caravan-road, though it is early yet for merchants to be abroad. Our best chances, I think, come in hiding away for most of the day, and continuing by night. If circumstances are as we feared," I said grimly, "then any civilians abroad will think nothing of Daevas travelling to and fro overhead, and your wings are dark enough to pass for Asmodian in shadow."

The thought seemed to sour him, and I saw him press his lips together as he suppressed some smart remark; I had not meant to offend him, the remark practically offhanded, and it was in this _wonderful_ spirit of cooperation that we proceeded with the next step of the plan - launching me into the air under my own power, without alerting the entire countryside in the process. My wings had come upon me by divine edict once, but I could not hope for such aid a second time - and though dismissing the phoenix-feathers had been relatively simple, and accomplished with several minutes' prodding, calling them to bear proved more difficult. My grasp of manipulation of aether was secondhand at best, crude and clumsy at the worst; though it comes naturally to those of the sorcerous persuasion, and perhaps the knack of it is easier learned, for a common soldier there is no remedy to it except practice, and our circumstances were far too pressing for much of that. It did not help matters that Oros spoke to me as if a simpleton, or a child unwilling to learn - soon we were snapping at each other under the snow-draped boughs, hissing back and forth at volumes that belied the intensity of the argument, trading insults that I have not the stomach to repeat here, as we were both under an enormity of pressure to succeed.

In the end, the gyre huffed out a long, low breath, and said in relatively even tones, "Give me your hand." I hesitated, balling both sets of digits into tight fists. He looked at me directly and added "Please," as prettily and sincerely as could be asked, and confronted with so polite a request I was forced to grit my teeth and acquiesce, holding out my open palm for his inspection. He took it between both gloved hands and said, "Now close your eyes."

"You have _got_ to be joking," I growled, but his face held no mirth, and no attempts to deceive; instead he stood there with every evidence of patience enough for the both of us, the sharp planes of his face nigh on to unreadable, a placidity which he surely knew would only infuriate me further.

"It's easier to focus on only the aether, when you take away your other senses," he noted calmly, still holding my fingers between his palms. I could feel the warmth there beneath the leather, despite the chill his fingers had taken on my behalf. With a frustrated sigh, I gave in and closed my eyes; as soon as I had done so, Oros stepped in close enough that he could press my palm directly to his chest, and in startled confusion I blinked my silver gaze open once more. He cleared his throat and arched one white brow, his hands layered heavy over my own, trapping it against the smooth coolness of his leathers and the faint, distant pulse of his heart - only reluctantly did I allow my lashes to fall once more, but this time I _felt_ it when he tapped his aether, _felt_ the humming resonance of it as autumn air and desert winds rose around us. Under normal circumstances, he was swift and efficient with his wings, there or gone in an instant, but there under the pines he was as slow and careful a teacher as anyone could have asked, the summon so precisely controlled that I could sense every feather as it unfolded, from the soft down to daggerlike secondaries and cupped coverts, and finally the long, arrow-straight primaries, the flight feathers that gave the knife-point silhouette to the gyre's distinctive wings.

"Pay attention, now," he murmured absently, and made a few experimental flaps of his wings, buoyed by the same aether he had called them with; I sensed them as much as I felt the air they pushed in their wake, a miniature breeze that lifted stray scraps of my hair from my face. Surely the muscles alone were sufficient to get him off the ground, but ah, staying aloft, that was the trick - but he showed it to me now without ever leaving the earth, teaching by example how the aether coursed and laced through and around and down, and how in the ideal they were as much constructs of the aether as they were solid limbs.

It made a frightening amount of sense, and in response to my understanding came almost unbidden the rush of aether I needed, pulsing in time with my own heartbeat, resonating with the peculiar and unique harmony that was my own divinity, willing, now that I understood its function, to mold itself to my needs. A flash of searing heat (not unpleasant in that chill air) along with the scents of brimstone, and molten rock and scorched earth; when I opened my eyes, it was to see the gyre and his dark eyes watching me with an air of weary victory, the flagrant and grandiose black feathers of a phoenix sprouting from my back. "Congratulations. Now, let's away, shall we? We're burning daylight," he grinned, utterly triumphant, and releasing my hand he flung himself into the air, narrowly skirting the pines as he climbed - the points on his narrow wings were better-suited for the forest than my broad ones, and I did not so much leap into the skies as lumber - but I was up, and at a pace I could maintain without driving myself into the ground. With some effort I rose above the treeline, chasing Oros until I could fall in at his left hand, where his wake made the going a little easier than I had anticipated, and took a handful of breaths to see my homeland as never before, from the air and on my own wings.

We were no longer in Carcarron proper, of course; we had left the Twinned Duchy's borders behind with the lake and its gleaming cousins, the morning sun spectacular where it reflected on the frozen surfaces, golden mirrors set like jewels in the whiteness of the snow-covered landscape. Still, I was heartened to see territory that was even remotely familiar, even if the caravan path off to our right was a symbol of danger as much as it was a path for us to follow. I had been correct in my assessment that no merchants would yet be on the road - my people keep strange hours compared to the Elyos, whose schedule I had adopted along with my defection - but that would not keep for long, and the closer we drew the more I realized the extent of the journey we flew. The caravan-track wound up into the mountains and far, far deeper, much of the path switchbacked upon itself in order that the massive wooden-wheeled trader-wagons could make the trip - Daevas were at an advantage, for while a man on foot with a brax-drawn cart must go many miles out of his way in order to rise a hundred feet in altitude, a man on the wing could shorten that trip considerably.

That said, it would still take us several days to reach Synedell proper and its sheltering valley; we could not in the meantime overnight in the outposts scattered along the road, for fear of discovery, nor near the inns for the same reason, though the thought of a hot-cooked meal was almost tempting enough to risk. Blessedly, it seemed Oros had had similar thoughts, as he kept well in the air and above the slopes where his shadow would not fall where any Asmodian might see it, the upper reaches unpopulated but for hardy goatish creatures, Asmodian cousins to abex, and the occasional snowcat or bear that hunted them. When he saw the darkened opening of a mountainside cave, he swerved so sharply for it that for a moment I thought we had been pursued after all - but when I followed him, and saw him touch down light as down at the lip of the cave, I followed and landed much more heavily by him, somewhat overshooting my mark and ending up in an awkward kneel on the snow-dusted stone. As soon as I touched down, I became conscious of how _heavy_ I felt, of how tight and hot my back was where the muscles had been pushed too hard, and I was fighting this sensation and attempting to vanish away my wings as Oros explored further into the little cavelet, finding it a well-disguised entrance for what seemed to be a long-abandoned bandit post.

"What is this?" I said under my breath, frowning as I followed the gyre inside. The sides of the cave were squared off plumb, clearly carven directly from the mountainside, and only a little ways in there was a wooden wall, well decayed, with the door rotted and hanging from the hinges; an exploratory touch of the boot from Oros saw it fall completely from where it hung, hitting the floor with an impossibly loud _bang_ that made me flinch to hear in that enclosed space. Oros, who would not be deterred, stepped on and then over the fallen door, probing further into the darkened cave - I saw from where I stood signs of habitation, a table and two scattered chairs sitting in the shadows, long abandoned.

"I'm not sure," Oros replied, quiet and suspicious. "But only something with wings could reach that entrance. Was there a Daeva in these parts who turned to raiding?" The question might have been deeply insulting, once not too long ago, but he said it without guile or malice, merely with mild curiosity; I searched my memory, but if there was some footnote in the history of Carcarron and its neighboring provinces that told of a Daeva-cum-bandit, I could not bring the story to mind, and told him so. "Perhaps there's a back way in, then - ah, here we are, another door," he said, but this one was still as sturdy a redoubt as the day it had been made, and it took the both of us together to shoulder it open, only to find a square and barren room beyond, so tightly sealed that not even a layer of dust lay upon the floor. Puzzled, we returned to the entrance, and saw on the backside of the wooden wall a series of writings carved by clawtip, in Asmodian letters that startled me to see peering out at me from the shadows, the both of us arrested where we stood.

"Can you read them?" asked the gyre, and I thought it immediately a ridiculous question, even though it was asked in Elyan - but a moment's further contemplation reminded me of Oros and his grasp of Asmoth, terribly accented as it was, as well as the notion that, if he truly had learned to speak my native tongue from a third party, they had clearly neglected him to read and write in that very same language.

Instead of chastising him, I moved forward to run my hands over the carvings, hunching my shoulders in upon myself as I took in the story they told. "It says that a woman once lived here, with her Daeva lover," I translated, my voice hushed even to my own ears. "She could not live among the common people, so her lover made her this home, which gradually became her prison. Every dusk the Daeva would come to be with her, bringing to her everything she could ever desire, before returning to his people at dawn. But she began to grow older and older, while the Daeva stayed the same, and as she aged his visits became every two dusks, then three and four -" I did not translate much of the acerbity of the words, of course; the woman had clearly grown bitter in her exile, rejected by the world and then forgotten by her immortal lover, but even without such faithful translation, the tale was a sad one indeed. "And then after seven days alone in this cave, with nothing to eat and only melted snow to drink, she carved these letters so that her lover, if he ever returned, would know that she died hating him. There are no names."

A tragic story, and one that poets on both sides of the Abyss have written of, time and again, with infinite variations on the theme; the involvement of an immortal with one whose lifespan was a candle-flicker in comparison is always, always an ill-advised idea, only too often undertaken without the thought and care required on behalf of either party. Oros was silent and still for long moments, oddly reverent to the memory of the mortal woman's suffering, before he moved past me to sit in shadow by the entrance, and look out across the massive space below, exceptionally quiet even for an Assassin such as he was. Heart heavy with another woman's loss, I sat across from him, studying him as he had once studied me.

We sat there for close to an hour in silence, a much-deserved reprieve from the exertions of the morning as we watched the sun creep up into the skies. Eventually I leaned my head began against the stone wall and began to drowse upright as Oros had in the pines, my eyes half-shut as I contemplated many things - the woman who had lived in that cave, or our plan to reach Synedell, and once very briefly hallucinating the smell of spring flowers and summer heat; when Oros spoke, it was out of this reverie that I was startled, and needs must ask him to repeat himself. "I said, who is Raum?"

"What?" I blinked, not expecting the question; he shifted where he sat, knowingly skirting our agreement that he should not seek anything of who I was, but I supposed that, _very_ technically, pondering on who my liege-lord had been was not strictly breaking our bargain.

"Back in the keep, you were... calling for him," he substituted awkwardly, for some indecipherable reason not wishing to rub my nose in the fact that I spent much of our tenure in Rivenstone weeping like a newborn babe, and just as disconsolately. "I must admit, I'm not familiar with the name."

_And you, spymaster of Taion Helios, and Pentarus Lockstep's leash-keeper?_ I thought in his direction, but he did not deserve the venom in it; and as I opened my mouth to answer him, in all honesty believing the information moot now that both Raum was cold in his grave and I was no longer mortal, and therefore in less danger than previous, I realized that not only was I willing to part with the knowledge, but that I could do so from a position of power. Rather than the information I had intially thought to impart, I said instead, "Would you bargain fairly for it, gyre, as you did once before?"

His face immediately took on a scowl of utter suspicion, and his arms folded once more over his chest. "Aion, _this_ again -"

"All I ask," I interrupted him coolly, with every scrap of self-control I could bring to hand, "is a question for a question, both asked before answered; and if one of us is unwilling to explain truthfully, then the other need not at all. A fairer bargain, I think, than the one that is currently standing - which it will supersede, should you agree," I added, if only to sweeten the pot.

His suspicion seemed to be mounting only higher, but the night-eyed gyre was tempted by the offer - he was a creature who plied his trade on knowledge and information, and there was no hidden fact that he would not have moved mountains to discover the truth of, should the opportunity be presented him. There was a poetic sort of justice to it; where once he had baited me with kindness, now I baited him with secrets. The understanding of this, dawning disgruntled across his face more gloriously than the sunrise we had flown through, was the most satisfying thing I had known in weeks. "Is that my first question, then, should I agree?" he said archly, and I nodded, careful to keep my smile off my face. "Very well - the bargain is struck. Ask your query."

It burst from my lips before I could moderate it. "What are you, really?"

Not who, but _what_; his brow rose again, acerbic and insulted, but before I could attempt to take it back, he spat out, "You first, phoenix," and shamed, I pulled my knees up to my chest to pillow my arms atop them, my gaze sliding away from him, back in the direction of Carcarron, and Rivenstone where he had died.

"Raum is... _was_ my liege lord," I began, quietly, "but he was practically my second brother. The three of us were born the same day, and our mothers were very close, so we were raised as close to siblings as could be. His real name," and I smiled suddenly, thinking on it and the distaste that we had all had for it, attempting to pronounce it as young children, "was Aelinian Carcarron, but none of us could say it properly. There was a story his mother told us, about a shapechanger, the Raum -"

"A king of thieves and thief of hearts?" broke in Oros, with an oddly studious look; I smiled weakly and nodded in the affirmative, pleasantly surprised to know that the gyre had heard the tale.

"With the wings of a crow and no fear in his soul. Jareth and I decided that it sounded an awful lot like him, and the name stuck." A shrug of my shoulders, though I could not maintain direct gazes with him for long - the wound of Raum's death had reopened only too lately, and I could not dwell overmuch in the happier memories, much as I wished to. "When he was old enough, his father gave him Rivenstone for his own - a practice run, if you will, for when he would inherit Carcarron and the entirety of the Duchy. I went with him, as his captain of guard." As miserable a failure as my tenure had been, was my unspoken addendum, and if Oros saw the self-hatred in the set of my features, he did not remark upon it. "Jareth had already been at Synedell for several years at that time, though he came home on leave, to see Lord Carcarron pin my commission on my chest. A red-banner day, that." There was no disguising the bitterness there, but I cleared my throat and moved on from the subject, my silver gaze lifted to pierce the gyre where he sat. "I am sure that you are already aware of the rest."

"I am," he admitted with a tilt of his head, almost shamefully - his influence of Pentarus had not _entirely_ been unfruitful, though clearly the traitor Daeva had been more clear about some things than others. "And you have answered to my satisfaction."

"That leaves your answer, then," I prompted, as gently as I could, but from the look he cast my way this earned me no favors; he shifted again where he sat, clearly uncomfortable with the prospect, and briefly I considered letting him gently out of the bargain, or offering some other tidbit of knowledge in enticement - but when he spoke, it was in a low, flat voice, hard and sharp as a blow, and his shoulders were drawn tight and close about his head, black eyes for the floor and full of some dark emotion that I did not dare to name.

"What I am, phoenix, is only what Ariel has made of me. You were right, you know. I'm not who I claim to be." His mouth twisted, an ugly expression on his otherwise handsome face. "Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night was my father, and when he died Ariel raised me up in his place, because to let his legend crumble would only weaken her campaign." And it ate at him, like a poisonous wound, a cancer in his soul, seething underneath his skin; I could see it now that I knew the cause, could guess with good reason that that was why he hid himself behind the monolith of his pride, because no matter how heroic his efforts, no matter how deep his suffering, all of his glories would be attributed to someone else. But that wasn't the full and honest answer to my question, and scarce had I processed this first revelation that Oros hit me with a second. "I would have refused her - I very nearly did - but she threatened me with the one act she knew would make me hesitate: she said she would to dishonor my mother, and reveal to all and sundry that she was an Asmodian, hiding among the shining court." His face was indescribably grim, and only grew more so when he saw comprehension on my face, my jaw dropped and my mouth open in a little 'o'.

"You understand now, Jaya? I'm a halfbreed - what the Elyos so _charmingly_ refer to as a bastard."


	23. Chapter 23

Music for this chapter is Jaya's theme - Solid Ground by Break of Reality, which, like Moonlight, can be found on Youtube. (Can you tell I love the sound of cellos?) Special mention goes to the cover of Bad Company by Five Finger Death Punch, which provided much of the atmosphere for the latter parts of the journey across remote Asmodae.

Also included with the posting of this chapter is some special bonus content: screenshots from Aion's character generator, as close as I could get to my vision of what the cast members of the Lay look like! The link can be found in my profile, and I appreciate any and all comments upon them. Fair warning: THE PICTURES ARE RIFE WITH SPOILERS. I highly recommend you read this current chapter before you click and view them! (If you don't see the links, refresh my profile until FF.N updates it. :D)

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Over the next handful of days, I coaxed the remainder of the tale from him, piece by piece, each word a priceless treasure that he parted with only reluctantly; for example, the story most famously attributed to Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night was, in fact, true, but the widely-known version was woefully incomplete, likely a clever bit of propaganda by Ariel's agents in order to strengthen her own position, and weaken that of the Asmodians. Ourobouros had indeed stolen in the night into the palace of Asphel, Lord of Darkness, and slain that great Shedim Lord's own spymaster - but I had never heard a motive for this killing, and through fair, if sometimes difficult trade, Oros revealed what Ariel had so carefully hidden.

The real Ourobouros had had an Asmodian lover - "Daiyu, for her eyes. Mortal," Oros said when first I persuaded him to speak of her, his tones deep-chested and filled with a kind of absent reverence, black eyes distant, "but fierce-willed, and strong enough in her own right to refuse him, if that had been her desire. In all honestly, I think no less than half their brazen plans her own devising" - and, because the Assassin was at the time unallied with any of the major Elyos Houses or any known legion, owing fealty only to Ariel and himself, he was something of a Daeva-itinerant, wandering as he pleased, whenever and wherever his strength was great enough to take him. Oros professed that he did not know how his parents had met in the first place, but the night that Ourobouros had infiltrated Asphel's palace, it had been with the intent to steal Daiyu away, and take her with him to Elysea. Corian Moonshy, the unfortunate spymaster, had stood in his way, a Daeva simply in the wrong place at the worst possible time.

"I see why Ariel would not wish that knowledge circulated. It would seem the greater coup, to kill Corian with intent rather than without," I said carefully, once this tidbit had come to light; Oros himself merely shrugged and rearranged himself beneath the trees we had made for that day's shelter, scarcely comfortable with discussion of what appeared to my eyes to be a most daring elopement.

"There is reason to believe it lessened his sins, in Ariel's eyes, no matter how it was accomplished," noted the gyre, shifting his weight from one hip to the other. "Certainly his plans could not have proceeded without her approval, after that."

His plans, it seemed, had involved hiding Daiyu beneath the very noses of the Elyos elite, in a secure household procured through a curious bargain with House Helios that he would not elaborate upon, despite whatever I might tempt him with in offer of trade; when I queried further of this deal of his father's design, he grew cagey and withdrawn, remarking only that I ought to "Ask Taion, when we get back - that's the business of his House. He chose not to betray to you my secrets, and I would do him the same courtesy." Phrased as an argument, perhaps I could have swayed him, but as a point of honor, I had no choice but to demur, a calculated move on his part that I had little doubt he had prepared well ahead of time. I allowed the subject to drop, however; if Oros believed that the knowledge might be gained from the illustrious leader of the Furiae, then I would pursue that line of inquiry when it became available. It would do me very little good now, to press my advantage and unravel all the precious-earned trust we had accrued, through our dangerous venture.

And trust there was, although perhaps not in great amount; in the days it took us from the lonely cavern in the mountain to reach Synedell, we learned somewhat to read each other, acting unhesitatingly when perhaps a lack of what little belief we had in one another would have caused disaster. On the first night away from that doomed lovers'-nest, flying in complete darkness as the moons had not yet risen, the gyre dropped like a stone from the sky, only to swoop unerringly into a neat landing in a snow-lined gully below the caravan-road, grey wings crisply folded behind him - and cursing silently, I followed him to secure myself in the canyon, perhaps not quite so precisely as the gyre and my wings ungodly black against the whiteness, their tips a fervent blue no matter how I wished they would not glow; I could not extinguish their light save for thrusting them into the snowbanks, and even then the white all round them took on a faintly azure-lit quality that made the gyre's mouth twitch in blackest gallows humour. Despite all my clumsiness and our cobbled shortcomings, however, Aion must have been watching over us; we were hidden in time to avoid a trio of Daevas flying from Synedell in a practiced vee, their wings blacking out the stars as they went.

We waited, breath held, for them to notice us far below, if not from our silhouettes then from our aether; only when they had flown past and well out of sight, unerring in their path, did I dare to move, Oros's eyes and mine meeting in the starlit dark. "Courier dispatches from the town?" I wished more than hazarded, perhaps more optimistically than circumstances demanded - but the gyre shook his head, his face ghost-pale and his mouth a flat line, lips pressed together.

"A courier would fly alone, at higher altitude. Reinforcements, from the Academe," he said, firm but unhappy with his own judgment. "They cannot have been hunting _us_, at least - they would have been flying for days already, if your estimates in distance are correct." A pause, his breath pluming in the night air, wreathing him in mist. "Three less Daevas to catch us in this mad enterprise, I suppose," he added, with not a small amount of cynicism, and within moments we were in the air again, winging onward through the cold, barren night.

The further we explored into the mountains, trapped in a state of perpetual exhaustion from which we seemed disallowed by Fate to remedy completely, the more we spoke on all subjects, and the less wire-tight and wary the gyre became. I inquired into the history of the Furiae, brief and bright as it was, for a more unlikely group of allied Daevas I could not have conjured from the annals of children's stories; there was not overmuch to tell on that subject, but Oros parted with it willingly, the subject a safer one than was our wont. The legion, such as it was, had only been formed in the last handful of years - Taion its unquestioned leader, of course, and its founding membership based entirely upon Oros and Kit, a triumvirate comprised of words, action, and a charisma enough to win followers and friends, despite the lack of prestige attached with the post. Nico had been the first to convert to Taion's cause, somewhat to my surprise: "She was seeking refuge from the Fidelis, and specifically, Liath Beltaine."

"_Refuge_ from him?" I frowned sidelong at the gyre in puzzlement, my brows fret and rubbing my hands against themselves to keep them warm; we sat side by side, in order to remain under cover of the ruined remains of a cottage hidden well back from the caravan-road, and as such the pair of us were close enough for easy conversation, but the howling wind blew straight through the decaying stone walls, and the black stripe of the Last Word lay between us like a law called down by kings. "Pray elaborate."

"There isn't terribly much to explain, more's the pity." He leaned his back against the cottage wall and kicked his long legs out as far as they would go ahead of him, arms folded across his chest, seemingly unperturbed by the little gales that breezed through the brick behind him and whisked through his hair. "The Sethes are indentured servants to House Beltaine, a contract between families that goes back generations, almost to the founding of the city itself - there were some debts the Sethes patriarch owed to the House, to be repaid with service. The current Lord Beltaine chose Nico, out of all her siblings and cousins, to be trained up into the house-guard - a position with some amount of prestige attached, though I must add," he said, with white brows raised, "that House Beltaine's guard forces are _exclusively_ female, and traditionally chosen before puberty. Make of that what you will, phoenix; your imagination cannot possibly be worse than the reality, and if Nico's behavior around him is anything to go by, I believe she fancied herself in love with him at the time." A pause; a careful tilt of his head, one that seemed to absolve Nico of almost all responsibility. "She was _very_ young."

I had thought I did not have the strength for horror; I was wrong. "Aion above. How did she escape?"

"She Ascended, that's how." A roll of his shoulders, to ease a touch of cold-spawned stiffness in the muscles there; he was not at all tense now, despite the subject, but rather had the attitude of a sunning cat, idly stretching more for the joy of it than out of any intent or need to do so. "As far as I'm aware, the Sethes line had never thrown a Daeva before Nico, and the emergence of one in his servant caste was seen by Beltaine as nothing less than a threat to his power. After the first attempt to have her killed, she fled the Fidelis, and Beltaine, at first opportunity. The problem here," he added, turning his head to fix me with the stare of both of his impossibly dark eyes, "is the word _indentured_. Beltaine quite literally owned Nico when she was mortal, and once she was _im_mortal, was still considered his property. Any legion or House caught sheltering her would suffer the full brunt of the law."

That horror in my belly grew, twisting and knotting itself into a thorny, nauseating mess that had me twisting my hands around themselves. Nico was my friend, but she had never breathed so much as a word of any of this - would have as lief liked to forget it ever happened. What awful things she must have endured in that bleak home, faced with every turn of a mockery of justness that made my nerves twist and my warrior's heart rebel. And yet she had emerged from it, stronger for the experience, bright and brave and a friendly, cheeky soul - though the openness with which she flung about her favors and affections made a great deal more sense to me now, in light of the practically abusive way in which she had been raised. Her body was her own, now, subject to the whims of no one but herself; she chose to flaunt the fact, a subtle act of defiance for her former master. "That is - outright _slavery_, Oros -"

"I know," he said, and his jaw was stern, not for me but for the memory of what had happened to Nicolette Sethes, and the dark things that had happened behind the closed doors of House Beltaine. "But the compact is centuries old, and Ariel, the only authority great enough to dissolve it, has better things to hold her attention than the cruelty of a single House - and one that has served her with irreproachable loyalty, otherwise. _Disgraceful_," he snarled, flashing eyeteeth in the corners of his mouth, and there was enough violent _hatred_ in his voice that if the word had been a tangible thing, it would have spat and sizzled on the floor between us.

For the first time in quite a long time, I found myself not only unopposed to his attitude, but wholeheartedly agreeing with his sentiments. "That well explains why she hates Beltaine, or why any of us should, for that matter," I said carefully, watching him as he struggled to soothe away the anger that had leapt into his frame at the slightest call, "but it does nothing for why Beltaine so despises _you_, gyre."

The snarl transmuted into a sneer, black amusement replacing his show of temper, and as the tension drained slowly out of him once again, he replied, "This one I give you for free, phoenix, because it is _wholly_ priceless: He despises me because I paid Nico's debt out of my own pocket. I've no doubt Taion would have done so, if I asked it of him, and Aion knows he has the capital - but that would have reduced it, in the eyes of the Court, to a transaction between two Houses. Nico would have only have become a thrall of the Helios, instead of Beltaine. No," and he shook his head sharply, "I paid it myself, every last kinah, and in a public enough manner that Beltaine couldn't refuse it without looking like a graceless jackass." I could not miss the malicious satisfaction in his voice, the lifts at the corners of his generous mouth. "So Nico went free, and then she went to Taion and begged him to let her join us, which Taion could no more have denied her than if the request came from Ariel herself. One of my favorite sessions at Court," he added, malign mischief giving an acerbic cast to his angular face, "was when Nico came in on Taion's arm the next day, draped in silk and the Furiae crest, all made up and looking like a queen. Beltaine's face was damn near _purple_, he was so mad."

But the best revenge, I think, was that Oros was a past master of stillness and calm, and Beltaine's flamboyant, spotlight-seeking nature would have demanded some sort of reaction, a show of temper or emotion from the gyre; it would have galled Beltaine like nothing else to be denied the chance to make a scene, and so Oros put on the part of disinterest, of having nearly forgotten Beltaine existed. He did not say as much, of course, but he did not need to - I recalled what interactions had gone between the pair of them, and always Beltaine was the insulted aggressor, Oros unflappably cool. How it must have needled the lord of the Fidelis, to face such an implacable, irresolvable foe! He certainly did not find such in Nico, who rose to every bait Beltaine cast, but with excellent reasons for doing so.

The rest of the Furiae had come to Taion with much less spectacular purpose. Trist had been lured by the promise of company that was not judgmental of his flaws - his lack of voice was seen as a detriment among the Elyos, despite whatever mental talents he possessed to compensate - and Kiert by the challenge of enduring the Furiae and their strange ways, the cleric unruffled by their odd hours and even odder missions. Terekai had simply appeared at Taion's door in the dead of night, and was closeted with the Helios prince for hours before, come morning's light, he was drafted into the legion, much to Oros's personal dismay and Taion's apparently smug satisfaction; it seemed that recruiting the powerful, experienced and notoriously hermitic Sorcerer was seen as something of a coup, and while I could not deny that possessing a mage with the strength and rare skill to hold a Gate was a boon to the Furiae as a whole, I rather sided with Oros and his uneasiness at having Terekai so close to hand.

By no means do I wish to imply that so much as a word of this precious knowledge of the enigmatic, complex creature that is the gyre was gained without fair trade; in return I answered his questions with all the honesty I could muster for such difficult subjects, steadfastly checking myself against half-truths and the lies of omission or implication that once came only with difficulty, and now surprisingly easily, to a warrior-scholar's hand. He asked of my origins, and I answered truthfully - of Carcarron where I had been born, of my trial and the death of Raum, of my brother Jareth and the cleverness in his magery - and of the fact that, though I had not been raised with the knowledge of who my father was, if I had been sired of one in the first place, that I had my suspicions in his identity. "Terekai Nameless has his fingers in more pies than we can possibly know," he remarked once I had broached the topic on the morning we found ourselves a snow-dusted ravine to shelter in, the gyre shifting where he sat. He was unperturbed by the notion of somewhat else that he could lay at the Sorcerer's feet; my feelings on the subject a sorry tangle mantled in thorns, I was uncertain if I was grateful for the consistent frankness of his distaste, the willingness to believe of the man near to anything, and without further examination into the depth and breadth of his motives. "He's older than he lets on, that much I am sure of."

"Oh?" I could not help the slight smile on my cracked lips, chafed from the cold and wind. "And here I was, believing you capable of rooting out any secret, no matter how impossible the task."

He tilted his head in quiet, tired acknowledgement of the weak and somewhat backhanded compliment, too bone-weary for the smugness that was his natural state. "Speaking of secrets, Jaya - you have told me what you believe of your father, and what you know of your brother; you have not spoken on your mother," and if all his senses came alive and his back were held straighter, it was because of what he saw flickering across my moon-white face, in the tension of my shoulders and the sudden clasping of my hands to each other, my fingers lacing corset-tight. He did not speak, but waited for me to do so, his eyes slowly narrowing with suspicion, and I wish for all the world that I could not have hesitated, could not have given him the hint that such a subject was uneasy for me at best - but it was fairly asked-for, and I could not refuse him, despite how I thought he would react.

I had kept this secret only with the help of Terekai, who was perhaps blood of my blood, and in any wise nowhere near what might be called Oros's good graces - and I had done it that I would not be used as a tool, but I believed then that Oros would not see it in such a light, and would surely rant and rage at my deception by omission, bellowing to high heaven of my deceitful nature and bringing down all of the Amsodians abroad in the valley as surely as an avalanche diving down from the mountain peaks, unstoppable and inexorable.

But the gyre handily proved me wrong, so adept at every turn in surprising me with his actions.

I spoke her name aloud, and that was enough; I saw the recognition on his features, the slight widening of his already large eyes, the contemptuous scowl smoothing from his mouth and brows, replaced with the now-familiar arrogant mask of sharp-cheeked pride, one that I was beginning to intuit as the face he hid himself behind, when he wished for no one else to know his thoughts. His coal-black eyes skipped to one side, away from my face, away, indeed, from anything that might have betrayed his mind; now it was my turn to frown, studying him in his many complexities and perfections and imperfections, and wondering what under Aion's power might draw the gyre to such a reaction, for if I did not know better, I would have thought him shamefaced.

"My condolences for your loss," was all he said when I probed him further, and though I braved a few more sallies into the vast dark plain that was comprised of his secrets, we ended the conversation with the pair of us huddled on opposite ends of the light-speared ravine, heads covered with upward-flung arms against the brightness, cold and alone, lost to everything but our own thoughts.

And mine were many, roiling and half-formed, chaotic in the unkempt theatre of my mind; as I struggled toward sleep, I contemplated the gyre and all his fey strangeness, his moods that appeared and disappeared with the whim of the winds - the anger that gnawed within his chest, the slivers of humour, of kindness that he had displayed, always to his own advantage - how even now he held his secrets close and dear as life, and how rare were the precious few glimpses I had seen of a man who was _not_ governed by the rage of being cast into a role in his own life that he had had no interest in playing. More puzzling was his face when I had spoken aloud my mother's name, and I worried at it like a starving worg with a marrow-dry bone, unable to persuade the calcified strata to sustain me further, but just as unable to resist the temptation to try.

He was prickly, yes, and protective, but more it seemed of the memory of Daiyu than of his own reputation - and while it seemed a curse to be born a bastard (a word I hesitate to use even now, so many years long gone) among the purebred Elyos, that Taion and the Furiae knew of it felt to me an obvious truth; and if Taion knew of it, then as like the Helios as a whole knew of it, and thus Ariel and all her lackeys. Yet at court Oros had not seemed a thing reviled, even by the older immortals present; that he had been playing the role of his father might have sufficed for those Daevas too new-Ascended to _remember_ the first Ourobouros, but what of those decades, centuries older than he? Surely they could not be so easily tricked - surely there was some secondary explanation, some fact I did not have access to nor had thought to inquire toward, that would allow the tricky pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was the gyre to at last fall into place.

The gyre held Daiyu in the highest of esteem, but seemed not to care what others thought of his bloodline, had used the damning term without hesitation once it was warranted; I myself did the best I could to withhold judgment, for it was very likely that I was of the same ilk - merely of a different, if no less exalted heritage - and the piece of myself that had seen Oros hold the line at the Dragon-beset Gate, that had glimpsed him as a noble creature utterly consumed with the moment, squirmed to label him with such an ugly turn of phrase.

He deserved better than such, and I wondered why he had not received it in Elysea.

I began to wonder also if he had not lost his own mother to tragic circumstances - if this Daiyu he spoke of with such respect, such adoration, had taken the same early path Ashura Aether-Born did, down into the Void, where their thoughts could not reach us for what scarce comfort we could draw from them. It was as good an explanation as any; and if he noticed that I deftly avoided the subject from then on, then he did not comment upon it, and so we held the peace between us for as long as we could.

We woke mid-afternoon on the last day to rain. It was a glacial drizzle at first, the spattering of ice-cold droplets soaking quickly into my hair and down into the still half-damp padding of my borrowed armor, freckling my cheeks and raising gooseflesh all along my frame. What light we had was rapidly dimming, and far too early in the day for true dusk; I was orienting myself from the sudden pull out of sleep when Oros appeared and bent over me, a brief shelter from the lancing rain, droplets running down his dirty cheeks and furrowing in his muck-daubed hair, already coursing in smooth icelike rivulets down his mud-smeared leathers. He looked like he had been _rolling_ in the dirt and wet, so caked with the stuff he was - not far from the truth, I learned later, as the gyre had scaled the side of the ravine in order that he might see the path the weather would take, and had not had an easy go of it, belly-crawling the last few feet in order he did not flop like a fish back to the bottom, the precipice dangerously unstable under his weight.

"Storm's nearly upon us," he informed me, reaching out to grasp my searching hand and haul me to my feet; I was still half-blind from grogginess, but the rain was swiftly bringing me round to sobriety. "Sleet, not snow, but we can't stay here long."

_Sleet_, in the mountains, at this time of year? I opened my mouth to comment, but closed it again with an audible click of my teeth meeting as my mind executed a few calculations, long overdue; Raum had died at the beginning of summer, and I had languished in sickbed and then in Carcarron's dungeons, all through the warm months and well into autumn, before the farce of a trial that had trotted me out in chains before the lords of the Duchy - the winter, or the slight depression of temperature that passed for it in Elysea, had been spent closeted with the Furiae and with Kit and Sara-shi in particular, though the greenness of the land had never faded, even with the shorter days and somewhat less tropical weather. In Elysea there would shortly be a burgeoning of spring, an explosion of buds and flowers, a celebration of life feted by nothing short of the land itself; the process would be slower in Asmodae, especially in the high places and the northern regions, but there would yet be scant signs, a thawing of the thickest ices, a prepared readiness, the sense of the earth waiting for the snows to ebb and melt away - in order that that brave, desperate creatures could blossom, bereft of the oppression of the cold.

Raum and Jareth and I had been born in mid-spring, on a glorious day when the crocuses had at last pushed their way into sunlight from beneath the carpet of a late-fallen snow, tiny green specks of hope that had heartened the denizens of Carcarron as surely as the birth of their lord's heir; we were now nearly twenty, or would be in a handful of weeks, except that Raum had been dead for the better part of a year, Jareth sat now in distant Synedell, and I was a traitor and a failure twice-over, a defector to the enemy, sworn now to serve the light when I had been born to serve in darkness. And barely, barely had I noticed the passage of time - interminable from day to day, but slipping rapidly through my fingers when added up in their totality.

Now it seemed to me that an entire _lifetime_ had passed, between the day that Raum had died and the one whence I stood in a sleet-stricken slash in the earth, enroute to Synedell in mind of what even _I_ could admit was an idiotic, suicidal plan; but worse was the knowledge that not only had it been three-quarters of a year at best, that I now had all of _eternity_ to look forward to in order to contemplate it - uncountable decades and centuries, a black phoenix in the service of the Lady of Light, reminded perpetually of my flaws without so much as the weak comfort that age might bring, the slow enfeeblement of my memories as much as my mind. The events that had led up to this moment would _never_ dull or fade, not for so long as I continued to live.

Too much, added atop the burdens I already bore; wounds old and new pulsing with ache in time to my every heartbeat, my mind scraped raw from the use of aether unpracticed, so stiff in my movements and harsh in my breath that I no longer noticed it, half-starved and trembling with cold and wet to my bones, and fearful that I might never be warm nor safe, not ever again. When had I become so afraid, so fickle and fragile of purpose?

I looked into myself, and I did not recognize the person that I had become in so short a time.

Oros was making ready to leap into the air as my mind scrambled to process all that had occurred, his sleek grey wings summoned and held aloft a few moments, to keep off the worst of the rain, and his face serenely distracted as he considered the logistics of an ice-storm flight; he looked entirely surprised when the first choked sob came, a brief panicked expression as if he expected me to be suddenly and fatally injured, but instead I lifted my hands to my face and dropped my head, palms pressed to my eyes, sleet running in sharp quick spears down the back of my neck and under my coraline, in my hair and along every inch of exposed skin, pinging off my armor with tinny metallic chirps where hail began to fall alongside the frozen slush. The second and third cries I reduced to soft noises clenched in my throat and high up in my sinuses, and the forth was merely a working of the muscles of my tongue, soundless, evidenceless but for the spasming of my chest as I tried to draw heaving breaths of air and denied myself the pleasure, but by then the tears had already begun to stream helplessly from my eyes, my shoulders hunched in upon my frame that my ice-rimed pauldrons brushed my temples and my whole frame shaking with the effort to control what would not be contained.

A passing fit of distemper, I told myself, a manifestation of stress and hunger and weariness, not weakness; I told myself this, and knew even as I did it that it was the most extravagant of lies, that all that I had held within me was now sluicing outward and that there was nothing I could do to make it cease until it was leached from me to the very last drop, a poison I had kept bottled up for far too long.

In hindsight, I think that I would have been acceptably well; I believe that, given a moment to collect my scattered and much-abused dignity, that I could have pulled myself up from that gutter of anguish and self-pity, wiped the tears from my face and continued on, a soldier to my core. I believe that, had I the chance, that I would have righted myself, locked all of it away deep in the parts of my soul that I do not like to remember that I have, and continued with our insane mission with nary a mention of what had passed.

I also believe that it would have been a terrible thing to live with, for the rest of my existence facing my inner demons alone, afraid to show the slightest hint that I was anything less than an invincible shield to protect those around me.

I wept, and stood shaking just at the edge of Oros's aether-risen sphere of autumn air and sand dunes, head in my hands and utterly wretched, until the moment he angled his wings to hide us from the world, and on the strength of a single careful step forward, leaned in to touch his cheek to the crown of my ice-wet hair.

It was a delicate maneuver, the gyre despite his heritage far more schooled in the language of closeness than I; his wings where held such that the feathers at the tips latticed where they did not rest against the wall of the ravine, grey diamonds formed and edged in white ice, deflecting all but the worst of the rain off of me and down his own frame, the slush tracing shining paths down the planes of his neck and shoulders, then altering course to follow the dirt-pebbled panels of his leathers and dripping in absurdly cheerful streamers along the length of the Last Word, quiescent in its scabbard. The air was calm between us, slowly warming with our breath as much as it could in that wintry atmosphere, and smelled of his aether and mine. Held there, he seemed still distantly aware of my distaste for being touched - his gloved hands were at his belt, not placed at my back or sides where I would have felt trapped in it and forced to rebellion, and though his face was close enough that his breath stirred my hair, he did not attempt to cross that personal divide - yet it seemed impossibly intimate, moreso to me than even an embrace would have been; it was not the closeness, however, but the simple _kindness_ in that well-meant gesture, the quiet assurance that I did not fight my battles alone, as unlikely as it had been freely given, that loosed the catches on my much-vaunted discipline and saw me entirely undone.

I bit down on my own knuckles to smother the sounds of my crying against discovery, overcome with it all at once. Oros simply stood there and allowed me to weep, the sleet and hail falling ever harder, the gyre silently bearing the brunt of both my emotions and the weather, the trailing edges of his ghost-grey wings slowly limning themselves with ice, the world around us growing ever colder as the cloudbanks spat and raged. He offered me no soothements or meaningless words, which would have been both against his nature and perhaps increase the chances of my continued weeping, but he instead stood fast and steady in the frozen rain and waited, patient as the earth, for the tide within me to recede. I would learn later that such outbursts are not only common among the new-Ascended, but practically expected; a Daeva's senses become enriched by the aether, growing keener and deeper than that of a mortal, and until an immortal learns to compensate for it, it was a necessity of divinity that a powerful warlord may be reduced to hysterical fits of weeping, all for the unexpected beauty of a sunset. Aion's chosen, and indeed the very acts of _being_ chosen, are not without their flaws. But that did not explain the behavior of the gyre, save that perhaps he had been anticipating the moment long before I could see it hurtling towards me - anticipating it, and prepared to act upon it, because he could not risk my being unable to continue under the harsh conditions of our journey. Just as I would never reach Synedell without his aid, so too would he never leave the mountains without mine.

But the justifications rang hollow even within my own mind, and I found myself reluctant to ascribe the gift of his kindness to an instinct for self-preservation.

In the end, the storm outlasted my momentary weakness, and hiccuping and cuffing at my cheeks, I stepped back out of the little warm space we had formed between the two of us, red-eyed and swollen-faced, not to mention _mortified_ beyond all belief; in tandem with me as I moved, he shifted his weight and stepped backwards, then shook and flicked his wings in every direction except mine, to rid them of the icicles that had begun to form on the feathers - a gesture he had been longing to make, from the vigor with which he flung the frozen slush into the air.

"Better?" asked Oros, not ungently; I nodded, eyes to the rain-pelted morass of mud and snow and sleet that had been the floor of the ravine only hours before, untrusting of my voice and unable quite yet to look the gyre in his hawkish face. I do not know what I would have done, if he had attempted further comfort, but blessedly he instead added in a tone rather more like his usual self, "Let's away, then, before we drown in this muck. Synedell ought to not be too much further on," and though that was a bit of an exaggeration, the thought heartened me, that if we had come so far and had not yet failed, that perhaps there was hope for us in this daft venture after all.

Into the air we went, and directly through the heart of every hazard a spring storm could possibly summon for our pleasure, but the dangers seemed nothing in the light of what had occurred; we did not speak perhaps more than five words to each other, all the rest of that endlessly long flight, but something between the gyre and I had changed, something that I could not easily quantify. It took us several hours to free ourselves of the storm, tacking back and forth across the chaotic winds in order that we would not be cast up into the ice-rimed clouds, but once we had broken loose of the gale and driving rain, I moved ahead of the gyre in wing-precedence, both to allow him some rest and to direct our travel from that point on; Synedell had at last become clearly visible, nestled high in a natural depression formed where a trio of mountains abutted one another, sheltered from the worst that a winter beyond the borders even of Beluslan had to offer, though in typical Asmodian fashion, nothing was ever left to mere chance.

It was fully dark by the time I saw it, each house a fortification unto itself, the walls surrounding the village as well as the doors and streets marked by dim purple lights that would have seemed inordinately bright to my people; they were there for safety as much as anything, however, because while the valley protected Synedell from the snow and wind, it could hardly do as much for the natural predators that roamed these remote reaches. I strained for altitude, conscious of the gyre following me after a brief hesitation, but the reason for such soon became apparent even to him - there were guardsmen patrolling in those streets, little shadows moving far below us against the bare, dark earth, and though we needs must fly over the township in order to reach the Academe, I did not intend to do so low enough that we might be identified and hailed. The moons would not rise till much later in the evening to give away the game, but seen from a steep enough angle, the cobalt-glow of my wingtips might be taken for falling stars, for the faint pale light of them could not be snuffed; the last thing we needed now was to tip our hand, right as we reached the doorstep of success, and I prayed that such efforts would be enough, that we would not be tripped up upon such a simple thing, and one so very beyond my control.

Once I felt we were high enough, I set my wings and began a long, stately glide, my back and arms protesting now not from the motion of flight, but the lack of it; I was becoming stubbornly inured to such an ache, and distracted myself with memorization of the layout of the town, appreciative of the tangled mess of streets initially designed to confuse conquerors, and the subsequent irony of how the caravan-road wound gracefully out of the mountain passes to streak a brilliant white line directly through Synedell, bisecting the village into two symmetrical pieces. There were a handful of such merchantmen, far below us and hard at work with the loading or unloading of their wares, each wagon displaying different colors and various states of neatness with their wares; I could pick out the scattered rings of bystanders watching the crates file out of those carters who were unloading their carefully packed items, an impromptu bazaar forming around the visitors, who for the denizens of Synedell were yet something of a novelty. With winter in the mountains not quite over, the merchants were very likely the first strangers the natives of the township had seen in months - and an enterprising tradesman, brave enough to risk the snowy passes, might make his life's fortune off of a single trip, bringing spices and silks and other such things as the mountain people could not manufacture for themselves. As such, they were fascinated with the show, and I saw no faces craning upwards for the sky; I waited still until we were most of the way past the streets below, all activity appearing normal to my eyes, before I risked a flap of wing to angle our path to the side, aiming with one final push of my endurance for an outcrop of mountain that fell beyond the rearmost border-wall of Synedell and outside of the dim circle of light, but was not quite yet within the purview of the Academe.

We dropped down behind the shelter of the rocks with as much silence as our exhaustion could muster, and with a shake of his shoulders, Oros banished his wings into nothingness, dropping onto the sloped ground to stretch his long legs out before him, and labored to catch his breath. I had had no such forethought - my legs boneless and seemingly made entirely of jelly, save for the throbbing streak of hot white agony that was my serpent-scar, I was on my rear end on the rocks and panting like an overworked brax before I had the thought to allow my own feathers to dissipate. Synedell now behind us, along with what was arguably the easiest leg of our journey, the Academe loomed full and impressive to the fore; it had been a single building, once, set at the very back of the valley and as far up against the mountainside as the citizens could persuade the mages to build it, and the central building was still an imposing stone structure, built of much the same mica-flecked granite as Carcarron and Rivenstone had been, neat rows of squared-off bricks giving the slant-roofed building a pebbled, almost scaly texture in the uncertain illumination of its own bluish guard-lights, set at regular intervals around a low curving retaining wall that demarcated the boundaries of the campus. Clustered around the main structure were a series of smaller, somewhat newer buildings of similar construction, connected by stone-columned breezeways with tiled roofs and, to my half-crazed eyes, resembling nothing so much as a dozen chicks crowding the legs of their mother; I had to squelch a hysterical laugh at the image, though in all honestly, I doubted I could truly find the energy for something as frivolous as mirth.

Nothing stirred on the pathways of the Academe between the buildings, but every window was lit from within, and shadows moved behind the curtains and reed-slatted blinds; when I sent my gaze towards the gyre, I saw him frowning at the oddness of it, his wits recovered along with his rasping breath, his eyes seemingly grown enormous in the dark, a trick of the lack of light matched against their inky depths. "There's no reason we shouldn't wait, and watch to see their habits," he said reasonably, but there was unwonted gravel in his usually clear tenor voice - my eyebrows shot up to hear it, and Oros grimaced and shook his head, a truncated gesture that barely stirred his dirt-spangled hair. "I'm fine. Too much cold air, and not enough rest or food."

The mention of food made my stomach grumble so insistently that the cramp hurt, harshly enough that I could feel it through the rest of the myriad insults my weary frame had withstood; the last dish I had eaten had been a hearty if simple Elyos lunch four days previous, before I had donned Kit's armor, and the tactile memories of apples, still crisp even so far removed of autumn, and fresh, hot bread, straight from the ovens of Sanctum's finest kitchens and drizzled with honey, were so vividly clear that it made my dry mouth water. To contrast, since the calling of the Gate, Oros and I had eaten nothing but snow, snow and more snow - hydration and a swift elusion of any pursuit we might face a higher priority than risking discovery in order to procure supplies.

But the thought of sustenance, at least, nudged my thoughts down the proper paths, and with a moment to allow my breath to even, my mind had begun to process information once more. "The Academe is a mage's college," I noted, searching the quiet campus with my gaze. "They have to feed the students, somehow. Do you see a mess hall?"

Oros sat up straighter, narrowed his black eyes to the task, neither of us with the fortitude at that precise moment to move in search of a better vantage. "That large rectangular one, I think. Up front, there, to the right -"

"I see it," I said, and was just about to screw my courage to the sticking place and limp to my feet when a bell tolled out across the valley; the both of us froze, certain we had somehow been discovered, but the ringing was slow and measured in pace, a marker of time, I belatedly realized, slowly releasing the impromptu weapon of a rock that had somehow found its way into my palm. From the dubious luxury of the bluff, we watched as the central building emptied out, a seemingly impossible number of student-mages released from its confines, moving in groups towards the tentatively-identified mess hall, as well as several of the smaller buildings in whirls and streams, their voices risen in cacophony of friendly chatter and indistinct from distance, filling up the valley like a cup submerged in a pool of water, all at once with very little room to breathe. I searched for Jareth's raspberry head among the milling press of mages, the colour alone unusual enough that I had little fear of being able to pick him out of a crowd; my heart fell somewhat when I did not find him, momentarily discouraged. Oros must have seen my face, for he made no comment, only watched the students at their walking, some from one end of campus entirely to the other, for reasons we could not discern at such remove.

But I noticed quickly that there were no guards walking among the buildings of the complex, no sheen of armor or the rhythmic stomp of a military stride; I wondered at it, then supposed that the faculty at the Academe was all the defense the students might ever need, for wild animals would detect and then skirt the reek of aether in the facility, and any enemy forces needs must have been _incredibly_ foolhardy, to consider attacking a college of mages on their own home ground. They would not be expecting a paltry pair of rogue infiltrators, not so deep in the mountains, nor well ahead of any news that might have been received from Carcarron. Within twenty minutes of the bell, the campus once again appeared almost desolately empty, save for the lights in the windows and the shadows behind them. Oros seemed to feel we had rested long enough; he loosened the Word in its scabbard and rose slowly to his feet, his exhaustion telling in the lack of efficiency to his movements. A man could only live so long on water and aether, after all, before his frame began to fail, and with that frightening thought emblazoned across the backs of my eyelids, I accepted his hand to help me to my feet, the gesture unasked, of course, but unrefused as well.

So far come, yet miles left to go; my entire body _ached_ at the idea.

Down the slope we went, aided by gravity in the forward motion but not in the stirring of pebbles, gravel and detritus around our feet, and by the time we reached the base of the valley, I was flinching from the perceived racket, though it could scarcely have been a whisper compared to the yowling of the bell from the Academe. Though Oros seemed to have caught what must have been his fourth or fifth wind, I was not so lucky; where he sprinted ahead across the valley floor to crouch behind the retaining wall that marked the Academe's border, his shoulder set dead center of the tiny dim area between two sets of bluish lights and his knees in the dirt as he made himself as small as possible, I could only manage a ragged jog, reaching him to kneel in a painful clatter of armor, rattling breath and protesting musculature, kept from collapsing next to him only by virtue of his hand steadying my shoulder. If I went down now, I knew, I would never rise again, but the spark of defiance that had buoyed me thusfar was slowly beginning to snuff itself out beneath its own weight, not to mention the weight of the chain mail that I wore, making every pull of air into my lungs a losing battle.

The wall had seemed small, from the side of the mountain, but the damned thing nearly reached my collarbone. I choked back a groan of distress, already imagining the difficulty I would have in vaulting it, and instead leaned hard against it, my forearm braced on the stone, only to jerk back in surprise when I felt the flow of aether running through the wall, a shock to my raw senses much like plunging my naked arm into a bottle full of lightning. Oros made a questioning gesture, too close to the finish to risk discovery either by Elysean or the strange accents in his Asmoth; I snatched his hand from my shoulder and pressed it to the stone, and he yanked his hand back much as I did, white brows knit into that hawkish frown, one sole touchstone of the familiar in what I was rapidly becoming convinced was one long, never-ending nightmare.

A level breath from the gyre, then a sigh; there was no helping it; over the wall we had to go, or the days beyond the portal had been for nothing, and while the aether trained to follow the brick was powerful, it was not hostile, not a barrier meant to keep strange beings like us out. He laced his fingers together, looking as drawn and pale and hollow-eyed as I felt, and reluctantly I put my boot in his cupped palms, pushed off of the wall as he boosted me up and over -

I felt it when I passed through the barrier, and realized that my assessment had been incomplete a moment before; the wall was not meant to keep strangeness _out_, but to keep the aether rampant across the campus _in_, and all of it, every last scrap, slammed into my senses with such power and totality that I did not so much land on the other side of the wall as catch the ground with my side, limp and weak as a newborn kitten while my vision spotted and spun, blacked at the edges as paper waved through flame. There was so _much_ aether contained within the Academe that in my weakened state, I stood no chance of withstanding it - the pressure of it filled the air such that I could not breathe at all, choking under its weight, a thousand tastes and smells stuffed like rotting petals into my nose and down my throat, a physical sensation of heaviness that had me scrabbling at the dirt with my hands, as if by clawing at the ground I could clear my lungs of the debris. Tears streamed down my face, the canals of my ears popped so painfully I was sure for a moment I bled from them, and as my world began to narrow to a single pinprick of light I had the clarity to think, _So this is how I finally die, drowning on dry land -_

And then Oros was there, over the wall and kneeling over my prone form, and autumn wind over the desert scraped away the blackness in my vision and the knots in my lungs, harsh and swift as sand rubbed into an open wound - but this was a familiar pain, the clean slice of his aether a thing I welcomed with open arms, and I was openly weeping as he ducked to throw my arm across his shoulder, the Last Word wedged between us, the energy of the accursed blade palpable even through the protection of my armor. It was glowing black and deep burgundy, now, the blade still sitting in the scabbard but four inches of steel exposed to the open air, the runes on the surface picked out in a vivid red the colour of pigeon's blood that threw the shadows on our faces into stark relief. We were terribly exposed, but there was little I could do, my limbs disobeying all orders from my brain; it was the gyre who limped us into the windowless lee of the nearest building, leaned me up against the stone, and my arm still draped across his shoulders, panted as he considered what next to do. He was trembling with effort beneath his leathers, pushed to the brink of his endurance and then well beyond it, but he refused to give up, not so close to the end of this awful journey. I could see the spark of stubborn defiance in his eyes, blacker than the night around us, and it gave to me a breath of strength, like the taste of water to a woman dying of thirst. Just enough to begin to continue on, and not a drop more.

"What in the nine hells... did you just do?" I gasped out, when I had the ability to do so; Oros's free hand dropped to rattle the hilt of the Last Word, not daring to sheathe the blade and send it back into torpor; it seemed to be all that stood between us and utter failure, a suspicion confirmed by the gyre himself a moment later.

"It's a dispel-blade," he panted hoarsely, unlimbering my arm from his shoulders, unsteady on his own feet and growing moreso by the minute. "It eats magic." A black-humoured grimace, pressing his palm to his side as he did so, as if he battled a cramp. "Among its other talents."

And that was a loaded statement if I had ever heard one, but we hadn't the time for social niceties - with the Word to battle back the worst of the aether-miasma, my mind was rapidly clearing, and I realized with a start that I was aware as I had never been of Jareth, aware of precisely where he was in the sprawling compound and among all the myriad mages that could have blurred my focus. When we were young, of course, I had always known where he was, in a way that I could not articulate to anyone - when he had fallen and broken his wrist on the slippery bailey steps, I, who had been across Carcarron Keep in the training yards, had yelped in pain and run immediately to his side - but that had been when we were children, and close in both spirit and location. The last time I had seen Jareth in the flesh had been some two years previous, when he had been allowed a brief respite from the endless lessoning of the Academe to celebrate with Raum and I our threefold coming of age; Jareth had been sent to the Academe at ten, shortly after it had become clear that without our mother the nascent mage would have no one to teach him in the art that was controlling his ability, and I had seen him only sparingly in the intervening years, though our letters were frequent and richly detailed.

This was nothing like that vague childhood notion of twinhood; this was a humming in the forefront of my brain, and I knew without having to inquire of the sense that Jareth was well and not far off, in one of the outermost ring of buildings a few rows down - that he was alone, working busily at an advanced project of his, and would not be persuaded to move for quite some time. I pushed off from the wall, the knowledge giving me strength I did not know I possessed, a feeling of energy I had not experienced in days coursing through my frame. It seemed my second wind had arrived in the end, and after all, with the thickness of magic held within the air of the Academe, we need not worry at being found through senses other than sight or sound. "This way -"

Oros began to question me, but I did not stop to allay his quite rightful fears, or to answer his questions; merely because Jareth would not be abroad in the night did not mean we were not in danger of discovery, and the gyre bit back his curiosity and followed me one shadow-striding step at a time, hugging walls, ducking windows, once pressing ourselves to a corner in order to avoid the gazes of a pair of passing mages, laughing at and more interested in one another than in their own surroundings. We reached the door of the building without incident, and I was poised to threw it open without thought or concern, anxious beyond words to rush to my twin, until Oros hauled me back; though Jareth himself was in a room alone elsewhere in the structure, the hallway immediately behind the door bustled with activity, and Oros drew me as gently as he could away from the front entrance, around two corners to the furthest side of the building, the one that faced a smooth windowless facade of its neighbor, yet itself had two ground-floor windows.

From somewhere within the folds of his much-abused leathers, Oros called to hand a slender throwing-knife, the blade hiltless, thin as a whisper, black-beveled and no broader than his thumb; while I stood by anxiously, this he used to pry open the window, digging the tip up under the sash and pressing down upon the impromptu lever, until he could slip his fingers in the gap, the knife bent, dull and near-useless at the end of it. The operation was delicate, utterly silent, and without doubt the longest two minutes of my life, standing there watching him work as I waited with pounding heart for discovery. A glance at our surroundings, however, proved that the gyre had chosen his avenue of attack well, and when I flicked my gaze back to the window it was to find that Oros had already slithered through and stood in the hall beyond, hands held out towards me. Even with his help, I was less that graceful as I mounted the sill, through and into the hall without falling down on sheerest stubborn will alone - and then we were both in the building, and Jareth lay just on the other side of a smooth mahogany door marred only by a room-number, and nothing Oros could do would prevent me from going to my brother now -

I shouldered it open, took in the narrow slip of a room all in a rush (desk, single chair, a bed and dresser in the corner, all of it dwarfed by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase that ran the length of one wall and was packed to bursting with leather-bound volumes) but it was the man working over open books and messy papers at the desk that held my attention; dressed in dark red robes with the ink-stained sleeves rolled up past his elbows, dusky-skinned and silver-eyed and hair a messy high ponytail of raspberry strands caught back from his face, familiar boyish cheeks and a chin sprinkled with neglected growth, the hair there pinkish against his dark complexion - Jareth, undoubtedly Jareth in every beloved inch of him, and my heart swelled with both joy and a terrible fear that the surprise in his startled silver gaze would give way to suspicion or, worse, to hostility, that he would not know me as I knew him, would not know the pale stranger's face I wore like a veil across the one that should have echoed his own -

But the twisting in my guts were for naught; Jareth stood in a rush, the books and papers scattering across and clear of the desk, a feather-quill left to float gently to the floor, the inkpot miraculously left untouched - and then without moving from desk to doorway we were in each other's arms, crying and laughing in the same breath, and though Jareth was not strong enough to pick me up and whirl me round while I was so weighted down in armor and mail, the intent was there, the wish to do so - I clung to him and he clung to me, the side of my face to his upper chest and his to the top of my shoulder, for he was quite a bit taller than me now, tall enough to give lanky Trist a run for his figurative kinah. Ah, Aion, I did not care. So long separated from him, even with everything that had come before, it was as if, for the first time in a very long time, I was complete; as if I had been missing a piece of myself that I had not known I'd lost, one that his presence, his unquestioning love, had restored.

"I never gave up, not once," he said fiercely into my shoulder, his blunt-trimmed claws scraping across the back of my borrowed armor with a soft noise like shredding tin, the rolling accents of his Carcarrese brogue washing over me, the Asmoth words engendering in me the feeling like a woman coming home. "I never lost hope that we'd find you."

"I know, Jer. I know," I murmured into his robes, and my world, made painful and foreign ever since Raum's death, just for a moment hove back into true, and for the length of that breath it was as if I had never left - as if all the fell and foul things that had befallen me were nothing more than a bad dream.

But then the moment ended, as it must; Jareth and I broke our embrace, but only so that my brother - so _tall_ now! I marveled at it in absent-minded moments, at how he had grown so much since last I had seen him - could hold me at arm's length and inspect the strange creature that the Elyos had made of me. "Oh, Jay, you look a fright under all that mud. Asphel's balls, what have they _done_ to you?" It was not said maliciously, my brother only full of concern for my well-being, but I felt more than heard or saw Oros tense at my back, the gyre stranded in the hallway and horribly exposed should any student come wandering by; I murmured for Jareth some polite noises to the effect of 'may we come in', and when his silver gaze landed on Oros to see him for the first time, the gyre's black eyes burning like banked coals in his hawkish face, Jareth visibly startled and stepped adroitly aside of the door, taking me with him, as if he feared that the Elyos who had come so far and done so much to deliver me to him would now kidnap me out from under his very gaze.

"They have not done anything to me that I did not ask for, brother." The words were truer than he knew, quite possibly the truest thing I had said since crossing the Gate into Carcarron. I smiled for Jareth, though, and bit the inside of my cheek, assessing exactly how much I ought to tell him; Oros, scowling more ominously than a thundercloud, slipped into the room and put the door against his back, as much to hold the entrance closed as to keep himself upright, feet apart and slouched with the attitude of a disinterested warrior-prince lounging on his throne, though the gyre's dark gaze was watching us keenly, and not at all with demeanor of insouciance. The Last Word, still protruding from its sheath and casting its black radiance across us all, was decidedly not going to convince Jareth of the gyre's good intentions, but its influence was the only thing that kept the air in that small, confined space clear enough for me to breathe; I recognized now, weeks after the fact, that the doomblade had aided me before, and I was not enough a hypocrite to refuse its help now.

Jareth flicked a suspicious glance to the gyre, of a sudden become our warden holding us in this quiet, windowless room, before he returned his anxious gaze to my face; though we maintained contact only tentatively, his hands on my shoulders, I could almost feel his frame draw tight and close, and when I scented brimstone and burning earth, I thought that I had let loose a hint of my own aether, until I realized that it was rising from my brother in curls and tendrils, smoke just barely shy of visible eddying around his frame. I knew that scent intimately well; it had wreathed about me like a cloak, every time I called my wings. I gripped his arms with strong hands, diverted his attention from the gyre - not my intent, but effective nevertheless. "You've Ascended?" I asked of him as my eyebrows shot skyward, surprised, but pleasantly so - it was perhaps the most welcome and treasured piece of news that I had had in weeks.

MY brother flashed a brilliant smile, a pure and undiluted boyish delight lighting his face as, just for a span of heartbeats, he allowed himself to forget that an Elyos was present in that tiny room. "Four days ago, at dusk - a phoenix, which has the student body all atwitter, all of them attempting to source a deed-name for me. You are come just in time. I'm to be graduated as soon as my dissertation is completed; Mother would be so proud." Oros became very still at the door, and while Jareth was nowhere nearly as well-keyed to the moods and shifts of the gyre, he could not fail to notice the candle-flicker of startlement in the depths of my silver eyes, so very much like his own. Whatever my brother had been about to say, he closed his mouth upon it, frowned down first at me and then at Oros, and when his gaze met mine again, the mirth had utterly drained away, and his mouth was pressed into a thin line across his handsome face, a knife-slash to mar his usually smiling features. "You aren't here because of me, are you?"

"We are, and I do congratulate you from the bottom of my soul, Jareth," I said carefully, every word painful as it emerged from my lips, "but we are not present for the reason that you believe."

"Did our _illustrious_ Lord Carcarron send you for me? I suppose he packed you off the very moment he knew I had gained the wings. How polite of him to bring my sister home across the damned Abyss, and then send her for reinforcements without so much as the grace to break those enchantments." One of his raspberry brows rose, and releasing me from his grip he lifted a hand to tuck stray strands of his hair behind one ear, then folded his arms across his chest, shifting to stand where he could easily throw his gaze back and forth between myself and the gyre; facing him necessitated that I give Oros my back, something that I realized only _after_ I had done so that I did not hesitate in doing it. Jareth snorted, a sharp exhalation of breath, then dropped his tones to nigh-conspiratorial: "Does he speak Asmoth?"

"More than well enough, Sorcerer," said Oros in like tongue, the gravel in his tenor lending weight to his already caustic tones. Jareth jumped, as shocked as I had once been to hear the words of Asmoth spilled from the lips of an Elyos, and had I not been gripping his arms in my palms, he would have backed from the gyre, as if the halfbreed Assassin were a poisonous snake. Aether tingled under my fingers, and whilst I held the utter conviction that Jareth would never harm me, the gyre was an unknown quantity and an Elyos Daeva besides; were I in Jareth's shoes, I would have been twice as suspicious and just as swift to act, but I could not allow the situation to deteriorate one iota further.

"Jareth, he helped me reach Synedell. I would be dead thrice over, were it not for him," I said quickly, before the aether my brother had reflexively called could build to disastrous proportions, as we were all three of us in very close quarters. I hesitated a moment, wetting my lips with the tip of my tongue, in my mind paring down the story to the barest-bones of truth, in order to cut to the heart of the argument and avoid any further posturing on either side. Jareth was trustworthy; Jareth _must_ be trustworthy, else we would die in the Academe, instead of on the mountainside or at the hands of the enemy. "Carcarron did not send me here. We have been running for days from the forces of the White Dragon, and if they catch us, brother, they _will_ kill us - I as a traitor, and Oros simply for existing. We need your help. I beg of you," but at mention of the Dragon, Jareth's face changed from grimness to a whirl of cascading thought, the metaphorical gears spinning and clicking behind his silver gaze, slightly unfocused - as he was no longer looking at my face, but somewhere inward, aligning what I had told him with his own estimations from context, and with what he already knew.

When he looked up a moment later, did my clever-witted brother, he unfolded his arms to set his hands again on my shoulders, then said with studied neutrality, "Jaya, I believe you, every word of it, and I swear that I'll help you as best I can - but as I love you, I think that you need to sit down."

"I have _not_ run mad," I said sharply, mistaking his meaning; he shook his head with a solemnity I had never seen on his laughing face before, and I recognized that whatever he was about to say was difficult for him, that he did not wish to cause me any great pain, but that he could see no way in which to avoid it.

"No, no - of course you haven't. You've allied yourself with the Elyos, haven't you? I would have done the same, in your position. But I fear that you've acted without all the facts, sister, and you will not like them when you learn the rest." A pause; his voice lowered to a deep-chested whisper. "Ah, Asphel-Umbra, how do I say this? I barely believed it myself, at first, and now here you are." His mercurial gaze strayed in Oros's direction without looking directly at the gyre, and he hooked his lower lip briefly with one fang, searched for the proper words to speak, to soften a blow he must strike. "The truth is that Avarran Carcarron is dead, some months ago."

"What?" My brows knit themselves into a frown, and Oros sucked in a sudden breath at my back, his mind reaching some conclusion that mine could not leap to; Jareth worried at his lower lip, hopeful that I would discover the knowledge myself, but it was not to be. "Then who in the Keep rules the Duchy?"

"The Dragon, of course," Jareth said, wincing, unwishing to see the expression on my face but unable to tear himself away. "It's Raum, Jaya - the White Dragon is _Raum_. Aelinian Carcarron lives, damn his brazen soul, and he's readying for a crusade."


	24. Chapter 24

**Part III: Unintended Consequences**

"On the first page of our story  
The future seemed so bright  
Then the saint turned out so evil  
I don't know why I'm still surprised

Even angels have their wicked schemes  
And you take that to new extremes;  
But you'll always be my hero  
Even though you've lost your mind."

_- The Way You Lie pt. III, Skylar Grey._

Jareth was undeniably right in one aspect: it was best that I sat down.

I was barely aware of it as he seized me by the shoulders to guide me to the edge of his cot - I do not remember at all the physical act of sitting, nor of the movement of the gyre as he left his self-appointed guardpost at the door to take up roost against the wall that abutted my brother's desk, directly acrost from me, where to my vision he seemed to simply appear, the sharp angles of his haggard, handsome face arranged into an artful scowl. Jareth himself had turned his chair that he could sit between the pair of us, within distance of touch should I require his support or comfort, but not so close that I felt smothered beneath his influence; my brother has always had a delicate sense for my need of breathing room, and never more than in that moment had I felt need of it, my heart pounding a mad triple-time in my temples, my very world seeming to tilt and spin upon its axes. When the reeling of the room around me threatened me with an unbecoming sense of vertigo, I pressed my forearm to my eyes, shielding my gaze, borrowing seconds desperately needed in order to think.

Every event that had befallen me in the better part of the previous year, _all_ of it, had stemmed from that warm afternoon at Rivenstone; in defense of Raum I had nearly lost my shield-arm, had most decidedly lost all reputation and respect among my people when I could not save him from our attackers, sentenced to a failure's punishment in the Barrow, a prison only for Daevas and the worst of mortal offenders. I had lost a man who was close to me as a blood-brother, had even, in the end, lost the will to live; it was only through the malice and cruelty of Avarran Carcarron that I had not died on the flagstones of the very same keep where I had been birthed, and through the trickery of the gyre that I had not done so instead on the white stone floors of Sanctum.

The caravan. The Furiae's intervention, the portal, the injury to my leg that even now howled along the muscles of my calf, stretched tight and painful as bowstring made of briarthorn -

A sham, every moment, perpetrated under the one point of fact that I had never, not _once_, thought to question.

My life had been ruined in the pursuit of a _lie_.

I was too weary for tears and histrionics, and in any wise, what use were they to me now? I had done my grieving, for Raum and for myself, and offered for it no apologies. What I needed now was to find a toehold in this strange new world I had found myself in, every bit of knowledge I had been previously sure of reshuffling themselves into new facets of alignment. My arm slipped from my eyes, downward with a sideways slide, that I could press the back of my hand so hard to my mouth that my teeth cut into the insides of my lips; the pain focused me, brought all my scattered senses into sharp relief.

The events at Rivenstone, I realized now, were too well orchestrated to have been either happenstance or even the planned attack of an Elyos vanguard; the distraction of the fire, the ease with which I had been drawn away and then separated from my men - even the relative swiftness with which the hall was set ablaze, the beams brought down with a minimum of effort, and then the blaze that spread afterward, so eager for encouragement, devouring nigh on to all evidence of what had occurred there, save for my own testimony - none of it, I judged with a grim stare for the floor between my brother's feet, could have been so flawlessly executed without aid.

Aid that could only have come from one place: within Rivenstone itself.

_Aion, I am such a fool._

"You said _we_," I said, collecting myself as best I could, lifting my head to shroud myself in mantling dignity; Jareth's face was slack with surprise, betraying his startlement, not at my recovery but at the sharpness in my gaze, pinning my brother to his chair with nothing other than the force of my own will. We had come _very_ far, the gyre and I, to be greeted with such news as set our entire existences upon their ears, and I was in no mood for patience or benevolence, nor willing to be betrayed a second time. "A moment ago. _I never lost hope that we'd find you_ - who is _we?_"

Jareth shifted his weight backwards in the chair, blinking in mild puzzlement, subtly retreating from the hardness in my countenance and the harshness of my tone; I daresay that my good brother, gentle soul that he always was, had never seen me at my worst before that day, always in the role of his laughing sister and never the warrior that my circumstances have required me to be. It unbalanced him, made him wary of me as the mountain-cat is wary of the worg - never defenseless, practically equals, but on uncertain ground nevertheless. "Jaya, please, don't look at me like that. I am not your enemy."

"Are you not?" I shot back at him, stiffening my back to sit upright upon the bed, frowning critically across the gap between us; it was harsher treatment than my brother deserved, but someone intimately familiar with the workings of Rivenstone had manipulated events to advantage, and of a sudden I felt as if hemmed in by a ring of blades, hostility in every quarter and turncoats where once I had thought I held unwavering allegiance. But I could not fail to miss the hurt that flickered across Jareth's face, nor the way he squelched and hid it with a gesture, tucking and retucking his raspberry hair back behind his ears, baring his cheeks to the cool air. I love my brother, but in that moment of doubt I did not trust him - and he knew it, and it wounded him.

"No, I swear it. You are half of me, sister; I could no more array myself against you as myself. As for the mysterious 'we' -" He sighed gustily, one long-fingered hand rising to rub at his left eyebrow, as if to smooth away an itch there. "Raum came here himself, not long after you were taken. It was the first news of you I'd had in _months_ - the faculty came and confiscated the letters you wrote me last spring, and Aion only knows what's happened to them. They refused to tell me what had happened, of course, on orders of Lord Carcarron. I didn't even know that Raum was supposed to be dead until he told me himself." His hand dropped and met its mate in his lap, his fingers lacing together in an ugly knot of knuckles, palms face-up on his knees, while his gaze dropped to the floor between us, my confident brother suddenly diffident and flinching, the memories uncomfortable ones for him at best. His voice fell to just scarce above a whisper, and for a moment it felt as if it were the two of us alone in all of the Academe, the gyre and his blade and his keen dark eyes forgotten entirely. "He was convinced you were already in your grave, you know. That whatever strange gambit Avarran had been playing had gone monstrously wrong, and in the worst possible way - but he traveled here anyway, to tell me himself what happened. I insisted that I would _know_ if you were dead, that it simply wasn't possible, that every fiber of my being protested against it."

"And he believed you?" I asked; it made Jareth snort softly, a derisive sneer plucking at the corner of his mouth, an expression that I had seen too often on my own face to mistake it for anything other than bitterness.

"Of course he did. What better authority did he have? Our whole lives, he's been aware of our connection." Jareth lifted his silver gaze to mine, a sudden tinge of apology there that I could not immediately find cause for; thus far my brother had acted in an exemplary fashion, and even I, suspicious of the motives of all those around me, could not find fault within him. "He swore to me that he would bring you home, no matter the cost - that while I worked here, slowly, to free myself first of the Academe and then to work out something like a ransom, that he'd do the same, at the head of this... this _army_ he's building." Jareth shook his head disapprovingly, while Oros shifted where he stood against the wall, black eyes hooded and his frame very, very still. "And he still wants me to think that, to join his cause. But I believe he's found better use in proclaiming you a martyr to our people than in actually _saving_ you."

I frowned at that, my brows knitting, feeling my mouth turn downwards at the edges. "A martyr? What could you possibly mean?"

"What he means," and the raspy tenor of the gyre was so loud into that conspiratorial quiet that both Jareth and I started, and edged backwards from one another in our respective seats, "is that the Dragon has been spreading the tale of your kidnapping and likely death through the ranks of his troops, as a means of uniting them in spirit of vengeance. You've become something of a false icon, Jaya," added Oros, his white brows rising just a touch.

The gyre had judged his moment exceedingly well; I had not the energy for displays of true temper, but I attempted one nevertheless, my jaw twitching into a growl that reverberated in that tiny room. "And _when_, precisely, gyre, were you going to inform _me_ of this?"

"Taion and I both agreed," he returned serenely, meeting my gaze without pause or hesitation, as unflappable as ever, "that it was best you didn't know until we had more information. That was, of course, while we were laboring under the misapprehension that the Dragon and Lord Carcarron were partners in crime, not the same man." The revelation that not only had Oros known the entire time, but so had _Taion_, made me tense as if to leap forward and strike him across his arrogant mouth; it did not help that he was so damnably _calm_ in it, as unaffected as if we discussed the capricious weather in the springtime mountains, disinterested and completely uncaring that my already much-abused reputation was once again a tool for someone else's profit. Jareth saw it, saw the spark of fury that ignited my weary bones, and wide-eyed he laid a hand upon my shoulder, gentle but firm, to keep me very solidly in my seat.

_Hate me and live;_ even now the gyre was inspiring me to acts beyond my own endurance, and I could have throttled him for it.

I think I frightened my brother, then, with the abruptness of my furor; I had had a temper in my life before Elysea, but I had never been so quick to be mastered by it, so ready to lash out at those around me to assuage the ardency of my feelings, and that he worried for me was plain on the angles of his face. I took a long, slow breath between my teeth, let my eyes fall shut for the span of a heartbeat, and set my anger aside, to be dealt with in its own due course. There were other issues at hand to be dealt with and defeated, and unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about Raum and his abuse of my name. It did not sit well with me, to be _used_ in such a manner, a rallying cry for a flag of war on which I now stood on the opposing side.

And that was a bracing thought, for with it came the realization that if I stood with the Furiae and Ariel, as I had sworn to do, that I would not only stand against my people and my brother, but Raum himself; never in all my short years had I considered the _possibility_ of rebellion against Carcarron, not when the man who had stood to inherit its throne had been raised alongside me, as close to me as my own blood.

I would be forced to strike against all that remained in the world that I had cared for, or I would become oathbroken, an honorless wretch left broken and bleeding on the cobblestones.

Every ounce of pride within my frame rebelled at the thought, and some voice within spoke and declaimed, _There must be another way._

"In any wise, we cannot remain here," I said at last, when I had calmed myself enough to once again trust the levelness in my voice; blessedly, it did not wobble nor crack, but from the look upon my brother's face, the evenness of my tone was not enough to convince him that I had sufficiently recovered from my outburst. He gave a strange, stilted smile at my comments, however, releasing my shoulder from his grip and relaxing somewhat into his chair.

"I thought as much - I already have some ideas in that arena, though it'll take some effort to pull everything together, and it won't be safe to do any of the _real_ work until classes let out. Last thing I need is a faculty raid." Jareth rolled his eyes, and I received the distinct impression that precisely such an incident had happened before, though the details of such had never been shared in any of his letters. From the curious, cautious tilt of Oros's head, he was similarly both wary and intrigued - but his eyes narrowed in suspicion, and he was clearly inclined to believe rather more ill of Jareth than I was. "We've got some hours yet to kill. Hungry?"

Undeniably so, but I was not unaware that even as I nodded in the affirmative that I was allowing Jareth an escape from the many numerous unpleasantnesses of our brief conversation, of finding his sister returned to him only to discover her allegiances changed; but when Jareth rose from his seat and made to pass Oros in moving towards the door, the gyre's hand leapt out and snatched my brother by the elbow, hard enough to hurt, judging by the twinging in my arm, as well as the sudden blanching of Jareth's face and the tension scrawled across Oros's own. His gravel-heavy voice was coarse and full of ugliness, the strange accents lilting from his lips only further serving to enhance the alienness of him in that tiny space, lithe and dangerous and as angry as he had been calm but a moment before. "Don't even _think_," spat the gyre, and the words fell between them like drops of poison, "of betraying us to your authorities. We have come this far with an army nipping at our heels - do not believe even for a _second_ that I will hesitate to use my dying breaths to drag you down with us."

"Aion above, let go of me," gasped Jareth, and I rose from the bed with a sharp, "That is _enough_, gyre!" but I could not help the unsteadiness with which I stood, nor the sway to my posture that necessitated I stagger for the nearer wall, a palm braced upon it to keep me upright, and I grit my teeth and despised my agonized leg for its betrayal, hated my frame for its simple weakness. Oros and Jareth both flicked their gazes to mine before staring at each other, and, reaching some sort of mutually unspoken agreement that I have never come to comprehend either the details or rapidity of, Oros released my brother, and Jareth, his shoulders drawn tight as twisted wire, slipped from the room without so much as a backards glance.

I sank down upon the cot once more, my leg inflamed to the hip and throbbing in time with my heartbeat; Oros, the slight frown that was his default returning once more to his handsome face, I expected to perch near of the door, all the better to ward off intrusion, but he instead chose the chair at the desk, angling himself in it such that he had a clear avenue of attack, should we come under assault after all. It put him in profile to me, his long legs stretched out before him with his boot soles flat upon the floor and his leathers open at the neck, one arm sprawled in faux-laziness along the the chair's back and the other resting on the scabbard of the Word, his fingers very, very carefully not touching the actual metal of the sword itself. The black radiance it emitted, the red runes carved into the darkened blade, seemed to purr like a kitten beneath even that barest of attentions; again, I was glad that it did not seem to be a sentient thing that the gyre carried on his hip, because for all that it had aided me, I was conscious of it like I would have been of an adder, curled and prepared to strike, and uncaring whose flesh into which it offloaded its venom.

"Even odds, that we end up fighting our way free of here anyway," he muttered in Elyan, the tones low and for my ears only; I daresay that Oros would not have sat at all, had he been less exhausted by our journey here, but even I could see the smudges blue as bruises forming in the hollows beneath his dark eyes, the tremor that appeared, flickering like fireflies through mist, to run through his arms and hands and the long muscles of his thighs under his mud-caked leathers, before subsiding once more. He was wanting for food and rest, the constant awareness of wallowing neck-deep through enemy territory telling on his spare form, and seeing how frayed and worn threadbare-thin he had become, I believed that had Synedell been much farther from Carcarron, that we would have ever made the journey.

I could have remarked upon it, could have cast his waspish weariness in the same unforgiving light as he had Jareth's potential for betrayal; I chose instead to say, in Asmoth meant to be clipped yet emerged merely tired, "We need his help. You ought to be less harsh." As slow and sore as I had never been, I began to pull the armor once more from my frame, as much for something to do as it was for my own comfort - I saw his head turn just a fraction in my direction, then stop, as if he thought the better of watching me remove my armor, though his expression did not change in the slightest.

"I'm not entirely convinced that he won't go running to tattle on us to the faculty - who are bound to be Daevas to the last man, because who _else_ would be teaching at a bloody mage's college?" grumbled the gyre, in Asmoth this time as he followed my lead without resistance. Though he was clearly aware of my every movement in his peripheral vision - and attempting every measure possible to squelch the little twitches and jumps of his overtaxed reflexes when I did - his coal-black eyes were fixated on the door as if it were his lifeline in a chaotic ocean, while I removed gauntlets, elbowcops, pauldrons, and set them all on the floor, one piece at a time. "There's more aether running amok here than I've ever seen before, phoenix. We are quite literally sitting in the middle of a powder-keg, and the both of us are the fuse."

"He is still my brother," I said, lowly, but stern as I could muster, given the pathetic mud- and rain-soaked image I portrayed. "I would that you have a care how you speak to him." He snorted and twisted his mouth into a crooked snarl, but before I could riposte I added, "Please," and that more than anything pulled the gyre off of his careful guard, his head swivelling around to pin me with a startled, searching gaze. He blinked owlishly, once, twice, and then returned to his self-imposed surveillance of the door; puzzled as to his behavior, I ducked my head and continued the process of de-armoring myself, feeling rather like there would be no end to the steel and mesh and mail, that in the days since we had fled the reckoning at the Gate that it had pressed itself into my body, and become a part of me that I could not divorce myself from.

Working in silence filled only by my ragged breath and the occasional grunted oath as my shoulders protested vocally at the movement, it took me near to twenty minutes to pry the armaments piecemeal away from my frame; but it was only after I had divested myself of everything but my boots - the mail hauberk, the padding, all of it, so that I sat in my shirt and breeches and rubbed industriously at the fiery knots of pain in my knee and leg - that I realized that I had said to Oros the word _please_ only once before, back in the earliest days of my captivity, when Kiert had been enlisted to see to my crippled leg and it needs must be bound, a thing I could not do myself and saw little point in refusing. I recalled as well that Oros himself had only resorted to it once in all our acquaintance, and that in the snow-mantled countryside as he showed me how to summon my wings; even when Sara-shi had coerced us into dance, he had not asked so prettily, and I had never asked at all.

The stillness of the room, once I had ceased to have a reason to move, was oppressive, filled only with our breath and the dimly malicious consciousness of the Last Word, half-somnolent at the gyre's hip; though he stared stubbornly at the door, and I pretended utter fascination with the titles of the tomes in Jareth's bookcase, I could not help but know in my bones how _aware_ we were of one another, and how, with all the distractions of survival and flight removed, I felt no discomfort or repulsion from the closeness of position, despite the fact that I could have reached with no effort at all and touched his leathers, if I had been so inclined. In that quiet, small place, I could not blame it on the very real necessity of his presence for my own continued existence; from the tightening of his jaw, a thing I sensed more than saw, his thoughts were traveling upon a similar path. I had disliked him tremendously once, yes, even hated him, but some time between the ill-fated Gate and Synedell, the gyre had become a fixture in my world, a creature acclimated to the gravity of my universe such that I did not even feel the slightest frisson of aversion.

The quiet begged to be broken, but for the first time in our acquaintance, neither of us seemed to possess courage enough to speak.

We were saved by it, blessedly, by the return of Jareth; I am unashamed to say that both the gyre and I scented the food my brother on a covered tray carried long before the door of his room swung inward, and though the food was simple fare - hot stew and fresh bread, and a mug of water for each of us - it was steaming-hot and fragrant, and I could not but notice that the gyre moved the chair such that he could watch my brother while he ate, hunched over his bowl like a starving dog, yet seemed completely unconcerned with giving me his open, unprotected back. It made a weak smile cross my face of its own volition, and I shook my head somewhat, the tray held primly in my lap, hands preoccuiped with tearing and then dipping my bread into my stew. "Did they ask you any uncomfortable questions, in the cafeteria?" I asked, to fill the heavy silence as much as to hear my brother's voice; I had missed the rolling brogue of Carcarron more than I dared admit to anyone other than myself, and Jareth, from the grin that blossomed across his familiar features, was only too happy to oblige me.

"What, about taking two bowls to my room instead of one?" Leaning against the wall where Oros had formerly stood, he shrugged one shoulder upwards in an elegant gesture and smoothed his hands into the pockets of his robes. "I am a _very_ talented mage on a campus full of lady-mages, Jaya. Ever since I hit my first growth, I can barely walk the halls without being assaulted by tutoring requests."

I scoffed quietly into my bread, smiling still. "And is that what you were doing, at dusk four days ago? _Tutoring?"_ It had been meant as a gentle sisterly tease in between bites of my food, but there was a gap of quiet where Jareth should have had a ready comeback; I glanced upwards at his face, saw that his cheeks were pinched-pink and that one palm had risen to rub sheepishly at the side of his neck, his silver eyes skittering off to one side. I had to remind myself to swallow before I choked, and my voice was a strange mixture of laughter and indignation once I had. "Jareth Azhdeen! You were _with a girl?_"

Jareth appeared _incredibly_ uncomfortable, fidgeting in place like a man with far too much energy and no outlet for it, and for several long moments I enjoyed his squirming in the way that all siblings do; I daresay that my good brother had _never_ expected to have this conversation with his own sister, much less so soon after the fact. "Contrary to what you might think, sister, I do try to keep my business private. Unfortunately, such an incident has had," his other hand emerged from his pocket, gestured in vague circles as he cleared his throat, "a certain _effect_ on my reputation -"

"What," quipped the gyre snidely, his black gaze fixed on Jareth and a crooked sneer tugging at his hawkish features, "has she been spreading the tale across campus that you perform, quite literally, like a demigod?"

Several things happened simultaneously in that tiny room, once that gem had departed from Oros's lips; Jareth quite nearly flushed the colour of his hair, no mean feat given his dusky complexion, while the gyre rather unconcernedly straightened his back in order to scrape the dregs of his stew out of the bowl with the heel of his bread, and I set my tray to the side on the cot, put my head in my hands and began, very quietly, to laugh uncontrollably. It started out pleasantly enough, a low, rolling noise that I could not but allow to escape, bubbling merrily up from somewhere in my chest and spilling endlessly from me, but at some point my exhaustion began to tell, and my voice cracked when I began to shake, turning my mirth into a choked, soblike sound that reminded me of earlier in the day, when I had cried my heart out into my own two hands while Oros had stood for me a steady watch.

When I had finally swallowed down what was entirely too near a miss with complete hysterics, I lifted my head to discover that both Jareth and Oros were staring at me, Jareth's face pinched with worry, the gyre's white brows slightly lifted in what I could recognize as mild concern for my mental health. I shook my head as if attempting to clear the cobwebs from it, rubbed my fingers hard enough into my eyes that I saw spots of brilliant colour flaring across the insides of the lids, like ink released in red water. "Would that that is the worst that you needs must face here at Synedell, brother," I noted hoarsely, dropping my hands to allow them to dangle from my knees. Oh, Aion, even on the journey across the mountains, I had never felt so tired, never felt so _old_ in a young frame. "Asphel above and Ariel below, I certainly hope that such caliber of problems are all what await me, should I ever see the Furiae again."

"You miss them, don't you?" asked Jareth, soft as kitten's paws, his tone much more respectful than it had been mere moments before - I think, at last, that it had begun to occur to him, all manner of the indignities and trials that I had suffered in order to reach the dark, desperate place within which I now dwelt. I nodded in the affirmative before I lost the nerve, laced my hands together in order to lean my chin upon my fingers, and Jareth, with a sideways cut of gaze towards the narrow-eyed gyre, added quietly, "You needn't go back, you know. I believe that I can send your... friend home," and he tripped over the word, because Oros was scowling openly and _friend_ was not the word that I would have chosen, either, not to encompass the boundaries of the strange ties that cleaved him to me - "Not easily, but simply and safely enough; the math and the theories are quite sound - but you could stay. Here, in Asmodae." _With me_, he could have added easily enough, but the words were so unnecessary between us that he did not feel the need to append them; but there was love and compassion shining in my brother's eyes, and I knew that he wished more than anything for my happiness, and felt that I could be nothing other than unhappy, serving in Sanctum when I would be a free woman in Asmodae.

And certainly there were many reasons to argue for it - I was an Asmodian Daeva, and I thought that not even Terekai's considerable ability to weave illusion could disguise of me that aspect of my soul, not if the coraline that rested in the cup of my collarbones had not been able to do so of its own accord; there was nothing to be done for it in Sanctum, save to cast myself at Ariel's feet and pray either for a solution or a quick demise. Raum, my former liege, was gathering strength for a war, and there was only _one_ opponent that could merit such cooperation among Asphel's own; if I stayed, the option remained open to me to hide myself from the vagaries of it, to remain neutral and unconcerned with either side. I had no such choice in Sanctum, in the Furiae - for if Taion and his legion, meager as we were, were ordered into war, I had taken oath that I would not be able to refuse.

But I had not sworn that I would risk my life in order that I cross the Abyss a third time, and rejoin them all in the boundaries of Elysea.

Oros was watching me very, very carefully as I considered Jareth's proposal, his wearied face as blank and undecipherable as the gyre could possibly make it; but though he was a past master of the stony visage, every muscle of him was tight as if in preparation of movement, and I saw the tendons in his throat work as he swallowed back his first piece of commentary, and quite possibly the second. What emerged from the grim white line of his mouth instead was, "I can't stop you, if that is your choice."

Of all the things he could have said, that was the one that took me most by surprise, and it was my turn now to be startled and searching for meaning in the lines of his hawkish face; we had come to a tentative sort of partnership, and there was a trust between us, but I could find no accounting for the queerness of his behavior since we had drawn within a half-day of Synedell, of his alternating kindnesses and cruelties, of the sharpness of his words and the unexpected offers of mercy.

But then I recalled what Taion had said to me, that his Furiae were volounteers all; he had given me every chance to unsay what had been said, to remain true to the kindred that had already abandoned me in the worst possible way. Now here was another chance, a quieter one, to allow me an escape from the life I had chosen among the Furiae. I doubted even that he would spill my secrets if I remained, for the _geas_ still sat like a wooden yoke about my shoulders, forbidding me to act against Ariel's own - just as easily, he might claim that I had died at that flame-engulfed Gate, or somewhere along the journey, and never fear the risk of anyone who knew the truth of who I was meeting a black phoenix on the other side of battle. It would be, as Jareth said, simple and safe enough.

And from the steely glint in the gyre's impossibly dark eyes, he would think me a coward for accepting it.

It made no matter; I had already chosen once, and I would so choose again. The Asmodians did not deserve to have me counted among them. Not anymore.

"When my own people cast me out," I said steadfastly to Jareth, pride stiffening my spine and making hard the set of my jaw, "it was the enemy that took me in."

"And it would be wrong now, to betray them?" His smile was both sweet and impossibly sad, and seeing such an expression upon my dear brother's face very nearly broke my heart, and my chest squeezed at the thought that I had irrevocably set the pattern to our futures, that I had and would continue to cause us both untold suffering. But I had made my bed; I must now lie in it. With even the tiniest amount of luck, perhaps Jareth would be allowed to remain at Synedell, and live out the rest of his days with nothing more difficult to trouble him than a reputation that made him turn pink to the tips of his ears whenever it was spoken of in polite company.

A pleasant lie, of course, but there were some illusions that I was not ready to shatter, and my brother's safety in the coming days was one of them.

"The Elyos have treated me more honorably than Carcarron has," I said instead, every word honest, even if it was not the complete and utter truth, but there was no argument that Jareth could summon to the field in the face of that knowledge, and he allowed the line of questioning to lie fallow and untended instead. Oros at the desk, his bowl scraped clean, had relaxed a fraction, just enough that I could sense it in the manner in which he held himself; there was no longer an air of tautness around him, as if he were a hide stretched too far on its rack, though his expression and posture had not changed, and Jareth seemed unaware of the subtle differences in the gyre and his attitude.

My brother sighed, low and gustily, eyes shut and shoulders slumped as he quit the field; his reasons for wishing me stay, after all, were almost entirely selfish ones, and though he has always acted in order that he might help me achieve whatever goal it was I had in mind, he had never been one much for dissuading me from it, once I have set myself upon the target. "I thought as much. I really ought to know better by now," he added, smiling and seeming with every moment that passed more like his usual self, "that it's just that much simpler to get out of your way. Now, I will need a little preparation for what I have in mind -"

"Which is what, precisely?" That was the gyre, and though the words were blunt nearly to the point of hostility, their tone, at least, was not; Jareth hardly noticed, for such an opening gave him precisely the excuse he needed in order that he might talk both our ears off. Even as I finished what remained of my meal, I daresay I followed along somewhat more easily than the gyre, having spent my earliest years in the company of mages, and exposed at points between the years to pages-long treatises from Jareth on the intricacies of his chosen art - but it was Oros who discovered the sticking-point first in the flood of terminology, his eyes narrowed as he stared Jareth down and snarled, "Unless I direly misunderstand you, it sounds like you'll need a second in order to execute what you propose."

Jareth, beaming as brightly as if Oros were a student of his own that had made a leap of fine mental intuition that he had not expected, nodded exuberantly. "I'm quite sure I have more than enough raw ability for both the tap and the harnessing even of a temporary portal, but I will be busy enough wrestling with enough power that an outside source of control is required, else I might end up dumping you in the Abyss anyway. I have the perfect candidate in mind," he grinned, pushing himself away from the wall, and for the first time I felt true doubt in my brother and the wisdom of his aim slither down my backbone, an ague of adrenaline, cold as water dripping from an icicle.

"Jareth," I hissed quietly, urgently, "are you _certain_ this is feasible? Keep in mind that you are aiding a pair of what for all intents and purposes appear to be a pair of Elyos war-criminals - there is not a lady-mage on this campus _entire_ that you can charm into helping you commit _treason!_"

"Ah, but see," and my brother's eyes were dancing with mischief and the peculiar light of a man seeking knowledge no one else before has known, and it twisted the bottom from out of my stomach to see it, "in that aspect, dear sister, you are eminently wrong. Besides, who else are you going to get to help you?" There was an unexpected barb in that lightly-said sentence - Jareth was full of laughter, yes, but there was a sharpness beneath the layers of good humour that I had failed to see, and Oros flicked his eyes to mine, face unchanged but for the tiniest pinscratch of a frown formed between his white brows.

As clearly as if the gyre had spoken the words aloud, I heard his thoughts: _And **this** is the man to whom you would trust our lives, phoenix?_ To that, I had no answer - knew there could not exist one sufficient for the Assassin, and so I chose only to stare him down, to firm up my jaw again and refute the possibility that I might glance away first. In the end, he chose to forfeit, a sullen cast to his mouth and a slivering of his black gaze sliding sideways, for Jareth, who stood and watched us both with an arched brow and the expression of a man engrossed in a heated match of tennis.

My brother allowed the silence to rein a few moments more, underscoring the oddness of the interlude, before he regained his mental rhythm and pace; the most immediate of his imperatives had been addressed, namely our tentative state of safety and a meal in our bellies, and there were more urgent matters now for him to attend to. Though he did not speak as such, it was etched in every proud-held line of his tall, narrow frame. "Now, get a little rest, the both of you. Like I said, some preparation is required, and when the moment is right, we must be ready to act as quickly as possible. You're as safe as I can make you, in this room - the door locks from the inside, and that," he gestured vaguely in the direction of the Word, still devouring the ambient aether as ravenously as it had when first unleashed, "will keep you hidden, it makes you practically invisible to mage-senses. Try to behave," smirked he in suggestive addendum, sounding less like a proper adult and more like the brother I knew, but before I could muster the indignation his commentary deserved, he had slipped through the door and left us both gaping in his wake.

Oros, in a paroxysm of temper, surged from his seat to stalk the three steps to the door like a conquering god, throwing home the bolt with a violence that was quite telling of the state of his mind, and sounded loud as a thunderclap in that enclosed space; if he had cracked the wood of the door with that simple motion, I would not have been surprised in the slightest. He stood there for a long moment, however, the gyre keenly aware of the momentary lapse in his poise and gathering the shards of it around himself before he returned, sinking slowly back into the chair, the motions smoother with his anger, as graceful and precise as if his bones had been built expressly for the purpose. His eyes never returned to my face, fastened as securely upon the door as if nailed there, and though his throat worked briefly as if he desired to speak, the quiet stretched onward and into eternity.

_Try to behave._ There was only one meaning behind that particular set of words that I could divine, and that was to bait Oros, for clearly Jareth had not meant them for me. As I pulled my booted feet up into my brother's bed - the mud and dirt would wash from the sheets eventually, and some petulant, childish piece of myself felt the inexplicable need for a petty form of vengeance, in defense of the gyre's honor - and curled on my side on the narrow cot, I could not help but watch him, somehow sprawled at rest upon the chair yet holding himself at complete, utter attention. The silence now seemed a tangible thing, pressing down upon us and squelching all thought of conversation; I nestled my head down on the pillow, pressing the dampness from my hair into it and unable to bring myself to care, and studied the gyre's angular profile until I could no longer lever open my eyes. Perhaps if I had rested first, he would deign to allow me to keep the watch for a while, until Jareth returned -

I do not remember succumbing to sleep, but it seemed to my perspective that in the middle of this sentence, a hand at my shoulder was gently attempting to rouse me from an impenetrable blackness, one that I was reluctant to rise from; when at last I had scraped my eyelids open, that simple gesture somehow more difficult than anything else I had ever done, I saw the grim pale face of the gyre leaning over me, one knee on the floor and close enough that I could smell the desert sand and autumn winds of his aura, even beneath the hungry influence of the Word. "Up," he said tightly, before he followed his own command, rising and removing himself from my immediate sphere of awareness, and aching in every inch of me I levered myself upright, scrubbed at my face with the heels of my palms.

The rest was not enough, I feared, for I was dizzied and bloodless, and my leg was numb from the hip down, needles of pain only gradually heralding the return of sensation, and that executed only with stubborn slowness; I did not trust my knees to hold me quite yet, and so gradually became aware of an addition to the room that was entirely unfamiliar, and likely the source of the gyre's discomfiture. She stood in Jareth's shadow at the open door to the room, a tiny, delicate-framed creature that seemed as if she would have been well at home in any library that I could name - smooth brown hair past her shoulders, a round, disinterested face and a pair of red-rimmed glasses perched on a pert nose, matched a tan jacket tailored to her petite frame and a skirt that seemed out of season against an Asmodian winter, though a cloak had been thrown over the ensemble to guard her from the chill. Everything about her seemed crafted to deflect attention, to make those who looked at her underestimate her, and I had been schooled enough in the art of subtlety to appreciate the affectations - but the mahogany eyes behind her lenses missed nothing, and her girlish features were set in a mask of cold disdain.

Jareth was smiling, though, and as the newcomer was decidedly well within my brother's personal space, I could find no voice for objection. "This is Vee," he said by way of introduction, gesturing to the lady-mage expansively, as if she were a precious treasure on display; she cut her eyes to him in a way that said both that he made such gestures quite often and that she did not appreciate them, and from the twinkle of mischief in Jareth's silver gaze, that he did so precisely to annoy her, like a boy teasing a classmate in the schoolyard. "She will be serving as my anchor for this venture. Vee, my sister, Jaya."

"Well met, I suppose," I said cautiously, easing myself to my feet and noting, if only for my own benefit, how neatly Jareth had sidestepped the fact of the gyre's inexplicable, unexplainable presence. The Sorceress - for she must have been such, for Jareth even to consider her for the task - only seemed the smaller once all of us were standing; if she was aware of her disadvantage in height, however, she did not allow it to be displayed on her face, and rather than greeting me properly she only lowered herself to a sharp not, her pale hands lifting to pull the hood of her cloak up over her face. Secrecy, then, ought not to be a problem - at least, not until whatever construct of magic that the pair of them might concoct was already summoned, given some luck, without alarming the entire campus.

"Right. Let's go, then, before dawn arrives," hummed Jareth, and I saw then that on his near arm were draped a pair of cloaks similar to Vee's, with another flung round his shoulders; Oros took one, and I the other, though I hesitated briefly enough to eye the pieces of armor that littered my brother's formerly clean floor. "Leave it; I'll think of something, but we can't afford the time," he said dismissively, and lacking the time or energy to argue, I pulled on the cloak and tugged the hood down as far as I could without completely blinding myself to my surroundings. Oros did the same, and the hood cast such thick shadows on his angular features, shading his cheekbones and enhancing the otherworldly blackness of his eyes, such that he had the appearance of a Death's head, complete with dark leathers and the blackened-metal sword at his hip.

Jareth led us into the deserted halls of the dormitory, Vee at his back and I at hers, because while I had walked open-eyed into this circumstance I was still aware of the possibility of ambush; I did my best not to imagine the image of Oros as Death, striding silently just behind me, though my imagination did its best to embroider the truth nevertheless.

The grounds of the Academe were strikingly still, in that quiet hour before the dawn when only the last of the moons was abroad in the chill, clear skies. As Jareth deftly threaded us through the lines of buildings, his goal some mysterious location to the rear of the campus, I was preternaturally aware of every tiny noise we made, of small movements in the shadows that made my shoulders tense and my hands jump for a weapon I no longer carried. The silence was almost sacred, and every step on grass or gravel or plain-packed dirt seemed inordinately loud to my senses; my blood pounded in my ears, and once more I felt with every molecule of my being how _exposed_ we were, but without my armor to guard me, it was practically torture, every breath of wind and hint of breeze ruffling through my cloak to chill me to my bones. How _easy_ it would have been, then, for the faculty of the Academe to see us dead or captured - if any man or woman had known the truth of our little band and so much as fancied themselves a hobbyist archer, we were dreadfully vulnerable. The only saving grace was that I had the gyre to guard my back, and though once that thought would not have been a comfort, that predawn in remote Asmodae, I was not inclined to argue with the sentiment, nor examine it too closely.

Our destination was a ring of standing stones around a wide circular mosaic-dais, set into the very earth with elaborate patterns laid in pebbles and gems, such that the whole would have gleamed in a rainbow of colours and intricate designs once the sun had risen - I had little trouble imagining it, gleaming as brightly as sunlight on an edge of watered-steel, the kind of piercing beauty that pained to look upon. The sole moon that had not yet set cast the whole of it into greyscale shadows, but my eyes could still pick out familiarities in the complex, interwoven motifs. A basic summoner's ring was picked out in pale pinkish rubies, and a larger arc laid along and outside of it in blood-dark corundum, this one a protective circle meant for the containment of magics; several triangles of various sizes, interlaced with one another, were set in turquoise on the western side of the dais, while a mirroring set in topaz were placed to the east. I did not cross onto the dais, wary of it and what it represented while simultaneously seeking patterns in the half-dark; Oros seemed similarly cautious, pausing a half-step behind me and to my left, one of his clever hands on the scabbard of the Word and the other flexing slowly, repeatedly, at his side. I could not blame him for his nervousness, for I felt it much the same as he, but when he fully sheathed the Word and the ambient aether of the Academe returned full-force, I screwed my eyes shut against the deluge of sensation, my breath shallow and ragged as aether pressed down on my frame and forced its way into my lungs. Slowly, so slowly, I fought it back, earning my right to breathe, swaying on my feet and hating myself for needing it when the gyre's hand shot out to steady my shoulder, his hand a steady anchor in the choppy seas of my mind. The somnolence of the Balaur-blade was a prudent move, given that Jareth and Vee almost certainly intended to harness portal-magicks, but I might have wished for some _warning_ first, from the gyre.

As we stood at the edge of the dais and I struggled to find level ground, Jareth strode ahead to the very center of them, kneeling to place his hands almost reverently against a complicated arrangement of brilliantly orange fire opals, forming a many-pointed star that was nearly lost beneath the intricacies of the other designs around it. Vee, shoving her hood back from her face, took up a place to my brother's right, her face having lost much of its coldness now that they were on the precipice of scholarly endeavour; I heard her say, so quietly that the words could only have been meant for Jareth's ears, "We'll never pull this off, you know," and as her hand descended to rest on his shoulder, the opals lit from within beneath Jareth's fingers, glowing with a fiery, fel light, like embers forged in the very fires of the burning Abyss.

"Nonsense," laughed Jareth from under his hood, his voice full of mirth and eagerness for what was to come. "You're only saying that because no one ever has."

Oros and I had time for an alarmed glance at each other's faces before the light blossomed and flared, growing from one moment to the next into a roaring bonfire, the leaping peaks white as the moon and licking hungrily at the night sky, the illusion completed by the stench of burnt earth and the taste of ashes floating in the air; Jareth's aether, brought to bear as only a full-blooded Sorcerer could, and despite myself I shrank back from it, kept in place only by the gyre's steady hand. Swift on the heels of the dancing flames was the scent of fresh-fallen snow, beating back the acridity of Jareth's aether - I did not need to glance at Vee to know that it was her own abilities rising to the forefront now, coercing and corralling the rampant flame of Jareth's energy. My brother was powerful, I was proud to see, perhaps as rawly mighty as our mother had been, but he lacked the whisper-fine precision that marked Vee's adjustments to his work - calmly, patiently, her snow and wind spun Jareth's flame into a thin, high column that stretched a dozen feet or more into the air over their heads, the space between the hollow walls just enough to admit something the width of a person's shoulders. An impressive show of cooperation, thusfar, as few sorcerers had such trust to interlink their workings in such a well-choreographed display of opposing elements, but nothing to be remarked upon, nothing out of the ordinary that I could discern, until Jareth's shoulders gave a great _heave_ and he groaned under his breath, as if he carried a weight that was almost greater than his constitution could bear -

And then I felt a strange _tearing_ sensation in the back of my mind, a thing more felt than heard yet made the hairs at the back of my neck prickle; Oros sensed it too, from the way his fingers clenched upon my shoulder, and then I saw it through the dance and weave of the flames: a tiny rip in the fabric of Atreia, a whorl of purple smoke wrapped lovingly and petal-like around a pale white center, the whole of it no larger across than the width of my palm. It came clear to me all at once, that Jareth had never had such base pretensions as to believe he could summon a true Gate and all the complexities of control that such entailed - and why should he? Beluslan was a land of rampant magicks, a land where Rifts between the disparate halves of Atreia formed naturally in the churning aether. He did not _need_ to form his own portal to Elysea, not when he could merely co-opt and control a Rift, instead, guiding it as it formed, encouraging a natural phenomenon to act as it wished, only _where_ he wished it to -

"Oh Aion," I breathed, watching as the newborn Rift shimmered iridescently and began to grow, nurtured by Vee's snow-laden gale, shaped by the boundaries set by Jareth's flame. A part of me feared desperately for my idiot brother, and wanted nothing more than to dart across the dais and shake him free of this foolish pursuit, before the naked blade that was the Rift turned in his hand and sliced him open, but even as I tensed all over for such an action I knew it for the fallacy it was; interrupting Jareth's concentration, not to mention Vee's, would only guarantee injury, whereas allowing this shaping to continue made such merely probable instead of an absolute certainty. Oros's hand was clamped at my shoulder now, hard enough to make my bones ache, and to this day I cannot tell you if it was for his own benefit or for mine; his face, lit harshly by the leaping inferno, was inscrutable, save for the widening of his eyes around his midnight-black irises.

The Rift, under the sorcerers' guidance, grew larger and into an elegantly-formed oval, just tall and wide enough that the gyre and I might pass through it one at a time; it shimmered again as its growth slowed and then finally ceased, the purple mists of the Rift eddying with deceptive tranquility about that white aether-center, impossibly calm, radiating enough aether that I felt as if I had plunged my skull into a bucket of moonlight, even past the heat of Jareth's bonfire. When they were certain the Rift had become stable, the constant impression of drifting snow vanished, and then the flames of Jareth's working flickered and died, Vee removing her hand from Jareth's shoulder and falling to her knees a step to the right, smoothing her hands through her hair while Jareth sat back on his haunches, panting, scrubbing at his face with one sleeve in an attempt to remove the evidence of what appeared to be a bloody nose. The Rift remained, indelible and immovable.

I saw, from where I stood at the edge of the dais, that the opals set into the earth had fused into a solid orange line in the pattern of the many-pointed star, and steadfastly I did not contemplate the energy or heat that would be required to do so.

Gingerly I crept forward, as much out of concern for my brother as respect for the Rift; any child born of the remote places where they form of their own wont can tell you a dozen stories of the nasty things known to be birthed from them, eldritch abominations flung forth either from the Abyss or from the lands of the people who oppose them. This one seemed to have none such unpleasantness forthcoming, but it never harmed one to be careful, and when I at last reached my brother I knelt down beside him and impulsively pulled him into my body, my head bowed, for a moment overcome both with gratitude for his actions and a newfound reverence for the strength he held in his narrow frame. "That could have killed you, you idiot," I murmured into his shoulder, but Jareth only laughed, and when I pulled away from the embrace his silver eyes were glinting like stars, a fang-baring grin spread across the lower half of his familiar face. Rusty flecks of blood yet clung to his nostrils and chin, and it gave him a savage countenance.

"You would have done no less for me, Jaya, don't pretend otherwise. Asphel's balls, I might even parley valedictorian out of this, if Vee doesn't want it herself. speaking of - Vee? Did you survive?" He turned on his hips, and I lifted my head, to regard the little sorceress collapsed a handful of steps away; Oros had padded silently up to examine her for obvious injury, and while she had a palm to her temple as if afflicted with a migraine fit to drop a Shedim Lord out of the sky, she seemed otherwise unharmed, her free hand waving dismissively in Jareth's direction and her eyes flinched shut. "I'll take that as a yes," chuckled Jareth, and we clasped arms that I could pull him to his feet, his knees yet a little unsteady beneath him.

"I suppose this is truly goodbye, then," I said without looking at his face, deigning not to step outside of the immediate influence of his aether; closer examination of his robes proved that they were ashy and speckled with holes in the front, where sparks and embers had escaped Vee's attentions, and once again I did my best not to think of Jareth's insane experiment with Rifts and the binding thereof, and how easily he could have been consumed by his own working. "We may not ever meet again."

"Don't be so sure," smiled my brother, and he tipped my chin up with one long forefinger to coerce me to meet his eyes, calm and irrepressibly optimistic as ever. "Aion has led you this far, sister - I don't doubt that he'll lead you a little further yet." He flicked his gaze to Oros, where the gyre had offered Vee a hand to rise to her feet; the little sorceress had just clapped her palm reluctantly to the tall Assassin's when my brother dropped his voice and dipped his head, whispering words meant only for me. "I love you, Jaya, so do me a favour and be _careful_ around that Elyos. I see the way that he looks at you."

I could not help staring at my brother when he straightened, my face undoubtedly a mixture of confusion and unalloyed horror, unable to grasp what Jareth could possibly be implying. "_What_ way that he looks at me?" But Jareth only shook his head, lips pressed together in a thin, pale line and brows fret in concern; I was prevented from further interrogation of my increasingly infuriating brother by Oros and Vee both turning their heads our direction, and nonplussed, I set my jaw and plotted revenge by saying instead, "I love you too, Jareth, so do _me_ a favour and shave off that ferret that you appear to be growing on your chin."

Jareth made a mildly indignant noise in his throat and lifted a hand to stroke his uneven stubble, which gave us both excuse enough to crack a smile. I did not want my final memories of my brother to be of quarreling, even over such a silly thing, and so I leaned forward again to embrace him once more, his arms crisscrossing over my back with such strength that it told the lie beneath his laughing exterior. When we separated for the last time, he gestured for the Rift, still calmly spinning in the open space of the dais's center, and said, "Two one-way tickets to Elysea, coming right up. Best go through before it dissolves. Vee might be up for this _all night long_," and the vulgar gesture said sorceress flipped in Jareth's direction made it clear as to the teasing nature of this comment, "but I haven't the strength for a second attempt."

Much to my surprise, the gyre stepped up next to Jareth and offered his arm to clasp; my twin, caught as off his guard by the gesture as I was, hesitantly completed it before Oros intoned, "I thank you. Truly. I owe you both a debt of honor for your aid." At this, however, Vee snorted inelegantly where she stood, and the soft noise of her scoffing made Jareth laugh, genuine mirth this time, which left no doubt in my mind as to where exactly the kind of aspersions Vee might cast on Elysean honor would lie. But Jareth, at least, was too gentle a man to call open attention to them; instead he set his free hand on the shoulder of the gyre and tugged him forward to whisper some sort of confidence into Oros's ear, and from the way his stolid expression flickered beneath the jagged fringe of his white hair, I _burned_ with curiosity to know what wisdom Jareth had imparted. But the gyre did not allow it to colour his visage a second time, saying only "Thank you again," before stepping away from my brother and towards the Rift.

Reluctantly, I removed myself from Jareth's sphere of influence and joined the gyre; he gestured for me to precede him, and with one last smile for my dearest brother, I hurled myself through the Rift, eyes screwed shut and an arm thrown up across my face, hoping for the best but more than expecting the worst -

A moment of vertigo, where my stomach seemed to plummet _upwards_ and my bones turned to jelly in my flesh -

Emptiness.

For a terrible span of heartbeats, I thought that we had been flung into the Abyss after all, that Jareth and Vee had failed and that I would fall without end, tumbling for eternity until I had the fortune to find a chunk of solid ground, floating out in open space - but then I flung open my eyes and saw the impossibly deep blueness of the Elysean sky, felt sunlight's caress on my cheeks, the warmth of the spring like a punch in the gut after the chill of Carcarron and the mountains -

My back hit the water with such force that it knocked the breath from my lungs, and I sank like a stone as the lake caught hold of my cloak and tried its best to drag me to the bottom. A split second was all it took for me to understand what had happened, to recover from the sting of the water's surface, and I began to struggle out of the cloak, tangled up in the fabric, my lungs already burning for air, water intruding in my ears, up my nose, pressing at my eyes and skin like a thousand clammy hands. I could swim decently well - most Carcarrese children could - but the water was murky and I had begun to panic, blinded and clawing uselessly at my cloak and the empty lake, as if it were an assailant that I could fight. The part of me that was logical and acted with thought and purpose had been overwhelmed by sudden and unexpected fear, a fear that would see me drown if I could not right myself, and I _had_ to right myself, but I could not _breathe_ -

Deft fingers at the clasp of the cloak, tearing it free of me, and then they were under my shoulders, dragging me upward. The gyre and I broke the surface at the same time, and choking and gasping I heaved in great big lungfuls of air, searching for the shoreline, for solid ground. Through some unspoken mutual agreement, we made for the shore, and though my shoulders have never hated me more for the effort and my leg thudded dully against the cool pressure of the lake, we reached the pebbled shore and lay on our backs in the gravel and mud to catch our breath, my lower half still mostly submerged, the gyre only marginally further exposed, his white hair sleeked back from his face and his eyes shut, basking in the warmth of a spring morning in Elysea.

The terminus of Jareth's borrowed Rift, some twenty feet in the air over the lake, spun and whorled cheerily in place for some long minutes before it folded in on itself like a flower and winked out of existence; inexplicably, I began to laugh, laying there in the muck and damp, wet to the skin and so far beyond weary that I was not sure that there were words anymore for the depth and breadth of how sorely I had been tested. Oros did not open his eyes, did not remark upon it, but his mouth curled at the corners as his laughter joined mine, hysterical and exhausted and utterly, utterly earned. Nothing mattered in that moment but the sunlight and the water and our voices spiraling up into the warming air.

We had done it. We were home.

And there would be time to sort the rest of it out, once we had the strength to pick ourselves up from that revelation.

* * *

A/N: Apologies on the lateness of this one, the Avengers ate my life. Vee is a character cameo by** Landing Failure**, who graciously allowed me to use her taciturn bookworm as a target for Jareth's shameless flirtation.

Some trivia: Jareth's facial hair prompted some negative messages in my inbox, directly inspiring the "ferret" comment. :D


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